Shelley Houston: KiwiLeather Innovations Founder on turning kiwifruit waste into a leather alternative

Kiwi ingenuity has found a new use for the 50,000 tonnes of kiwifruit that is rejected each year. 

KiwiLeather Innovations is taking the byproduct and turning it into a plant-based leather alternative.  

Founder Shelley Houston told Mike Hosking it takes about 500 grams to make a square meter of the alternative leather.  

She says they’re targeting the automotive sector, as brands like Tesla are already using things like cactus leather for their interiors. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What to do with old Kiwi fruit? Will you take
the byproduct, you process it, and you turn it into
a leather alternative. Yes, we are delving into the world
of biomaterials here. Shelley Houston, founder of Kiwi Leather Innovations,
as well as Shelley good morning, Good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
How are you.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
I'm extremely well as I read your story. You're sitting
at home in Papamoa. Your son, who works in Kiwi Fruit,
brings a whole bunch of this stuff home. You make
a lot of baking and then you think, I'm sick
of baking this stuff? What else can I do with it?
Next thing you know, you've got the leather alternative. Is
that how it worked?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yes, pretty much, that's the way it worked. I used
to have a makeup brand that I started in my
kitchen as well. And there's just a bit of chemistry
is a bit of a hobby of mine. So I'd
seen overseas that they were already creating other biomaterials off
grapes and mangoes and pineapples capped as anything like that

(00:50):
you can find. So I give it a go with
the good old Kiwi fruit.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
What do you need physically to take the kiwi fruit,
put it into what that does what to give you
the alternative to leather.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
There's lots of different ways that you can do it,
so I'm still kind of experimenting with that at the moment.
But yeah, there's there's a few little tips and tricks
that they give you, some different ways of putting in
plastics and regiments and stuff like that, so I'm avoiding
all that side of it. Some use polyester as a backing,
so I won't be doing that either. I can't really

(01:26):
say too much about what's in it, but I can
tell you what's not in it. And is it no?

Speaker 1 (01:30):
But you but you've got it. You've got a secret recipe.
You've got a thing that you know what it is,
and you could you know how it can be made? Yes, okay,
what's the mathematical equation? How much of the old kiwi
fruit do you need to make, say a square meter
of the leather alternative.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's about five hundred grands, is that all? Yeah? Well,
at the moment to make to make half a square meter.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
Gosh, So that's being for buck in that case, isn't it.
You're making a lot of leather alternative with comparatively, I
didn't visits. You needed a skip load of the stuff
and it sort of breaks down and then the next
thing you know, you've got a small piece of leather
out the end.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Not quite but yeah, almost like that. There is a
lot of waste out there, a lot of byproducts, so
usually it goes through to big stuff for cows. So
there's definitely a lot more available than I thought there was.
But we're still kind of getting through the process of
missing it up and trying different techniques to get it
out the other end.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
What are you going to do with it? You're going
to make leather pants? What are you going to do.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Clothing? Shoes? I really want to get it into automotive,
So tensilers know now only to use captives leather BSW
users capture some pineapple and mushroom leathers. Suddenly leavers really
popular at the moment, and it's a great one.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
Do you know if anyone else is doing this.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
In New Zealand? I keeped from protech is doing with
sundy leather. YEP, so him and I, you.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
And Keith started Yeah, yeah, you and Keith have got
the alternative leather market stitched up.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
No pun intended we have we definitely have good on you.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Well, we'll stay in touch, Shelley. I think it's fantastic
by products into something else, and there's a lot of
that that car idea. I love because there's a lot
of that stuff going on. It's sort of super cool
not to have leather anymore, and you know it's made
of a pop plant or whatever it was beforehand. For
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(03:34):
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