Curtidos Bengala, tanners from Leon, Guanajuato is already using this process, “and they are doing excellent” said Jennifer Halliday Evolved By Na
Curtidos Bengala, tanners from Leon, Guanajuato is already using this process, “and they are doing excellent” said Jennifer Halliday
Evolved By Nature came to ANPIC Reconection and promoted its leather coating process
Leon/Gto News
Evolved By Nature, a Boston based company of chemicals producers and processors was present at ANPIC. Activated Silk is the process Evolved by Nature presented and promoted at the ANPIC Reconnection event in Leon, last week.
Longer lasting leather
Jennifer Halliday, Vice President of Business Development & Communications at Evolved by Nature, said that the Activated Silk process works to achieve longer-lasting leather goods, and said that Curtidos Bengala from Leoni s already using their products and they are already selling leather treated with their new technology.
“Activated Silk Technology is a finishing technology with a sustainable focus for leather. We know that leather is one of nature’s most durable materials, and we are focusing on making natural leather more sustainable using an all natural technology”, said Jennifer Halliday.
Protein isolated
“Our company was founded in 2013 by a biomedical engineer and a biochemical engineer and they had studied how to take silk cocoons and isolate the protein that makes up that cocoon into liquid form which had never been done before”, said Halliday.
The company is based in Massachusetts, some of the investors include Channel, the fashion brand. The company has two full scale manufacturing facilities in Massacchusets and they also have distribution warehouses all over the world.
“We have many tannery partners and we work very closely with the leather working group of tanneries such as Curtidos Bengala and we are also members of other leather groups”, said Halliday.
A unique technology
“The technology is is very unique, we call it Activated Silk but it is pure silk in liquid form. This cocoons are sourced from Japan, China, South America. The cocoons are made of silk and that’s the purest silk protein and the job of the silk protein is to automatically bind and coat, that is what this protein is meant to do but what we found was that not only did it bind and coat, but it had an incredible partnership with collagen. So working with leather was natural”, said the Vice President of Evolved By Nature.
The company started innovating in leather in 2017, they also worked in personal care in 2017 and they went commercial in 2019.
Innovative creators
“The technology is called Activated Silk with pure silk protein in liquid form. We use it as a finish, a more sustainable finish in leather, we call it a technology platform because our scientists create different products with different characteristics using many silk protein molecules. We have several network commercial links now, and so we are used to be innovative and create different products and as I mentioned it is very strong and binding and it also has an affinity for dye”
Jennifer Halliday
Vice President of Business Development & Communications
at Evolved by Nature
Cocoons rescued
“We source the technology as I mentioned from Japan, China, South America and we work with farmers that actually use the silk worm for food such as animal food, fertilizers, and then the farmers would simply throw the cocoons into the land fill, and we came along with really a purpose for these cocoons, so those cocoons are shipped to our manufacturing facility and there we depend completely on nature, there is nothing genetically modified whatsoever, there is nothing made in a lab, we use the ingredients and our technology”, said Jennifer Halliday. The technology is used to extract all of the silk.
“What we found and is really exciting in leather was that our company’s main mission is really improving the health of people in the planet, we really have a sustainability for this to start, so we really focused on reducing the use of chemicals and in the case of working with Curtidos Bengala we have been able to replace chemicals, which is something pretty exciting, and we have also seen improvements in color fastness. We are creating this sustainable technology”, said Halliday.
Transparency
“It is a very simple process, we have leather technicians all over the world, in Europe, in Asia and we have many partners as well. And we have completed our analysis, which is very exciting, this analysis is very important to us as a company because we wanted to measure our environmental impact of making our Activated Silk. It was an exciting move for us, because transparency is very important to us”, noted the Vice President.
“And then what we have seen is an incredible demand from our tannery partners and also our brand partners. We work for tanneries and we work with the brands. Fashion brands, performance footwear brands and other different brands they all wanted to really get sustainability claims, their consumers are asking for them, the plants are asking the tanneries for them”, informed Jennifer Halliday.
All natural
“The beauty of working with Activated Silk technology is not only that we are aligned with the United Nations Sustainable development rules but we can talk about the technology with our partners, we can call it sustainable because it is all natural, it is not genetically modified whatsoever, biodegradable, and non toxic”, said Halliday.
Evolved By Nature is a label that meets the demands of environmental protection agencies, said Jennifer Halliday.
“We really want to help our partners tell us a marketing story that really ressonates with their clients. We have a full creative division and we help them tell a better story where there is creating a leather that is more sustainable, a leather that is better for you, better for the planet, better for nature or even a leather that is actually green even though a purse is red”, said the Vice President of Evolved By Nature.
“We are really looking to work with tanneries, such as Curtidos Bengala, that are on the path of innovation, that want to continue to find better ways to improve sustainability and that is really our commitment. We want to help our tannery partners have a more sustainable leather that still has a great perfomance. We don’t sacrifice performance”, noted Halliday.
Protecting, beautifying and making leather longer lasting
“We choose finishing because it is the most effective and easy way to apply the product because we can form a film on top of the grain of the leather. We choose to apply it on very natural leathers because we can have the advantage to improve a little bit of physicals in the leather and keep the natural look and touch of the leather. You can upgrade the material without sacrificing the characteristics of the leather. You can still keep calling it an environmental friendly leather even if you put a thin layer of Activated Silk on it”, said Michael Bock, Evolved By Nature’s Leather Technician, based in Munich and who supports partners of the company in Europe, Mexico and South America.
“You use it as you use any conventional finishing in the industry, after the base coat, with a top coat or both depending on what you want to achieve. It is always depending on what the customer is asking us to do”, said Bock.
Thinking of the customer
“In terms of tannery, for the shoe upper leather, what are the characteristics the shoe manufacturer needs from this specifical article. It is always what the needs of the customer are”, he said.
“We are not producing this treatments for upholstery or for automotive, since their requirements are some of the highest in leather industry, because the strees on the material is really heavy. We are in the middle of going to this industry. Our leathers are mainly for shoes, leathergoods, clothing, accesories, fashion, because for this sectors we are already treating leathers. Soon we will be able to go to other sectors, in say… one year”, said the Leather Technician.
“Right now we are able to sell our Activated Silk to all the world. There are people who want our product in Malaysia, Thailand, other parts of Asia. We are now working in Mexico with Curtidos Bengala from Leon, and we are being asked to work with other tanners”, said Bock.
The benefits of using ACtivated Silk
Curtidos Bengala has reported that they have significantly reduced their use of polyurethane since they have been using the Activated Silk process.
“We are very honored to be here at ANPIC and Curtidos Bengala has been a really incredible partner, they have been amazing working with us they are the type of partner that you want to work with”, he said.
Processed leather for all the world
Curtidos Bengala exports most of its products treated with Activated Silk, and the goal is that they sell their treated leather for use in Mexico. Curtidos Bengala are working in innovation with enthusiasm and passion. They have, said Bock, a really close knit team.
“Our intention is to use the Activated Silk in Mexico in many more leathers, we are working right now to be able to work with even more tanneries in Leon to provide them our leather finishing technology”, said Leather Technician of Evolved By Nature for Mexico.
