Green leather alternative from mushrooms

What appeared to be a small movement just a year ago seems to be gradually developing into a new branch of industry. More and more new producers of green textiles and leather alternatives are entering the market, creating a new market of sustainable choices for the footwear, fashion, automotive interiors and furniture industries.

Nature-based processes for leather alternatives on an industrial scale

A new mushroom leather from the Italian manufacturer Mogu Srl has been added under the name “EPHEA”. After several years of development, the material producer from near Milan presented a new family of materials at Paris Fashion Week that goes back to fermentation processes.

In this way, the designers should be given particularly environmentally friendly textiles and, above all, alternatives to animal leather. The material qualities in terms of colour, density and mechanical stability as well as the homogeneity of the material can be stably reproduced in the biofabrication process.

Furthermore, EPHEA raw materials are characterized by high reactivity to reagents allowing the effective transformation and overall stabilization into fully versatile products. “It is an absolute privilege to finally be able to introduce EPHEA to the global community”, says Stefano Babbini (CEO of Mogu Srl.)

“Driven by the goal of raising the standard of flexible mycelial materials, our team has worked very hard for more than 5 years to deliver a truly concrete impact in industry. Of course, the success is is also the outcome of well-established partnerships, which are fully coherent with our positioning in the European leather and alternative leather industries, through overall integration within the related value chains.”

In connection with the introduction of the EPHEA family of materials, the company also presented an expansion of the corporate structure. In the future, the technology holding will operate under the name SQIM, which combines the two brands MOGU with product ranges for interior design and green building, while textile leather alternatives will be sold under the EPHEA brand in the future.

www.sqim.bio