Through the CityLab010, the city of Rotterdam supports and stimulates the energy of ambitious businesses operating in the circular economy such as Fruitleather Rotterdam, a company transforming leftover fruits into durable, leather-like material.

On one side, around 18 billion m2 of animal leather is produced per year to produce consumer goods globally, such as bags and shoes. On the other side, cities like Rotterdam, the most important Northern European fruit port, where more than ± 10% fruit is wasted during the import between the producer and the port of Rotterdam as a processor. In transport to the wholesaler this is another 10%, and between the shop and consumer another 15% is added.

Fruitleather Rotterdam is the first company in the world that processes fruit waste, in combination with natural additives, into a sustainable leather-like material with various applications. It supplies fruit leather as semi-finished products to leather processing parties, while helping Rotterdam to reduce its fruit waste in a circular way.

Fruitleather Rotterdam contributes to reducing the ± 65 billion kilos of CO2 that is released during the production of animal leather, while recycling fruit waste.

Photo by m0851 on Unsplash.