Abstract / Summary
Sourced from animal hides, leather continues to have a growing demand due to its durability and luxury appeal. Whilst demand grows, so does ethical and environmental concerns relating to the large amounts of waste and pollution generated by the leather manufacturing process. To address this, companies have developed alternative materials, but these may display poor performance, and some contribute to environmental pollution using plastic polymers. In response, advancements in cellular agriculture technologies and skin tissue engineering offer a promising solution to produce cultivated leather. The ability to mimic the collagen rich extracellular matrices (ECM) of animal hides using cultured fibroblasts could eliminate both environmental and ethical concerns whilst meeting traditional leather standards. However, challenges still arise, with additional research required for developing serum-free culture medium, scaffolding technologies and sustainable tanning methodologies. Additionally, cultivated leather needs the ability to be scalable whilst being cost effective, and capable of replacing both mammalian and exotic leather. Herein, we review the sustainability and characteristics of leather and its current alternatives, with a focus on the future potential and surrounding challenges of cultivated leather.