The demand of leather is increasing gradually which enlarges the size of leather market. However, the environmental harm caused by traditional leather and faux leather production is significant as the production process release large amount of metal waste such as chromium. Therefore we had an idea of replacing traditional and faux leather by introducing biosynthesized and biodegradable leather to the market. First, we need to figure out why the market size of traditional leather market keeps growing and what are the advantages of animal furs that attract consumers to buy. To know that, we interviewed Mr. Song from Aowang Clothing Company which insists on utilizing animal fur to produce leather. Mr. Song informed us the advantages of traditional leather and pointed out the area that we need to work on to improve our leather.

After interviewing Aowang Clothing Company, we planned to identify the types of customers that might show interest to our product, so we sent out a questionnaire online. Through the questionnaire, we recognized the preference of potential consumers on leather products and types of consumers preferred purchasing biodegradable leather.

After identifying consumers and properties of leather that we need to develop, we started the theory studies and experiments exploration.

To learn more about the theoretical basis of our material, we contacted two hydrogel doctorates, Yide Liu and Donghao Zhao, studying at Zhejiang University in China and ESPCI_PSL in France respectively. We hypothesized that our interlaced material of bacterial cellulose and spider silk fibroins might form a bilayer hydrogel. Our contact with these two experts was mainly to learn about hydrogels and their properties, the market applications of our material, and inquire about the properties and production method of bilayer hydrogels.

In the experiment on fermentation of SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), we encountered a problem that SCOBY was polluted during fermentation.

Thus, we visited Classy-Kiss, a yogurt company, to learn their fermentation methods. The visit to Classy-Kiss provided us great inspiration for our further development in hardware equipment which could sterilize the environment and ferment SCOBY without contamination.

As we have more experimental foundations and deeper understanding to the leather market, we wondered about the acceptance and attitudes of traditional producers toward biosynthesized products. Hence, we visited China Boton, a traditional fragrance company. China Boton expressed their willingness in incorporating biosynthesizing techniques into fragrance production and cooperating with synthetic biology teams, which implies that we have a larger possibility of entering the traditional market.

At this moment, we have already completed about 90% of our project, and we prepared for enlarging the size of leather production from laboratory to massive industries. However, the transformation from laboratory to industries required large amount of money, so we gave presentations to potential investor Jennifer Zhang of our product and asked for their opinions. Advices of investors helped us to solidify our business map. As an important step of marketing, we focused on the characteristics that would most influence consumers’ choices on purchasing leathers.

Consequently, we interviewed EEKA fashion, a modern company for women clothing, and they informed us that consumers concern more about quality and property of leathers rather than other features, so we determined to develop more on leather properties to substitute traditional leather.

Aowang Clothing and Accessories Limited Company is one of the traditional leather industries that insist on using animals fur as the material for leather products. Since Aowang Clothing chose to manufacture leather products only by utilizing animal fur, we wondered why such industries persist in using animal fur rather than faux leather or biodegradable leather. By interviewing the traditional leather producer, Mr. Song, we better understand the unique traits of traditional leather that attracts consumers the most and what we need to achieve to replace animal leather, such as softness level and stress level.

As we found out that different customers tend to have different consumption behavior on leather products, we decided to discover the type of customers which prefer our biosynthesized and biodegradable leather the most. Therefore, we send out a questionnaire online to ask for the attitudes of consumers who tend to purchase leather products. Through this questionnaire, we identified the potential consumers of our product, and started to specify on developing characteristics that most consumers care about leather products.

The most important part of our meeting was the design of a bilayer hydrogel. Generally speaking, a bilayer hydrogel is composed of two hydrogels with different physical properties. The first hydrogel should have short fibers with many points of contact between the fibers, while the second should have long fibers with fewer points of contact. This ensures that when a force is applied, the first gel will absorb some of the force and “break” and the second gel can hold the entire material in place. Surprisingly, our material coincides with the properties of a bilayer hydrogel. The BC is the first hydrogel, consisting of many unstretchable short cellulose fibers, while spider silk fibroins are longer and more stretchable. Through talking with the two hydrogel experts, we gained a theoretical basis for the design of our material.

While we are experimenting on the SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast) fermentation, we encountered an issue that SCOBY was usually contaminated during the fermentation process, which largely affected our experimental progress. In order to ferment SCOBY normally without pollution, we interview a yogurt company and visited their industries to study their fermentation methods. We are thus inspired by the yogurt company, Classy-Kiss, to design a hardware equipment to solve the SCOBY contamination efficiently. (If you are interested in the hardware equipment, click the link)

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Does the new techniques of producing leather really have the opportunity of entering the leather market? To answer this question, we visited the laboratory of China Boton, a traditional aromatic compounds supplier in Shenzhen. Although China Boton mainly produce fragrance in traditional method, they are continuously establishing synthetic biology teams to invent new ways of making spices. Through the positive attitudes of China Boton toward biosynthesized products, we can infer that traditional producers are inclusive to new techniques, willing to change and collaborate with synthetic biology teams. Therefore, we concluded that our leather product could set foundation in traditional markets.

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After getting our biosynthesized leather ready for massive industrial production and sales, we realized that we need a large amount of money to purchase expensive equipment for enlarging the leather production in labs to industries. Hence, we began to plan marketing and finding investors for our startup of entrepreneurship. Jennifer, one of the potential investor of our project, watched the presentation we gave and provided insightful advices for us to solidify our business model. (click the entrepreneurship link to view more details)

To figure out the characteristics of leather that most consumers care about, we interviewed headquarters of EEKA fashion company that focused on women’s apparel. EEKA fashion answered that the properties of materials are usually the most considered by customers when purchasing leather-made clothes. There are indeed consumers care about environmental harm and sustainability of leather, however, properties of leather is the most important factors that most consumers would care. EEKA fashion’s response reflected that consumers are willing to try biodegradable leather if the leather has the similar properties as traditional leather. Through the interview, we further recognize the area that we need to work on to satisfy consumers and replace traditional leather.