Meet Orange-Peel Vegan Leather Innovators, Veather
The carbon cost of leather is enormous. Each square metre of leather consumes 1700 litres of water, and releases between 65-150kg of carbon emissions. It was an issue that inspired Peter Farrell Cup (PFC) finalists Veather to create orange-peel based alternate leather - though they stumbled on their innovation entirely by accident.
Team Veather with PFC Mentors, including James Tawadros of the Founders’ Makerspace
Turning food waste into fresh threads
“The idea of Veather was born out of sheer coincidence from a food waste video,” explained Team Veather, a cross-disciplinary student entrepreneur crew featuring Timothy Jing, William Chiem, Billy Fan, Ken Duong (Vi Kien), and Jeromy Wong.
“As a group of friends from different backgrounds, we wanted to create something that was unique and might make an impact on the world.”
Food waste, as a problem particularly endemic to the first world, seemed like a problem worth solving.
“We wanted to make food waste reusable,” the team explained. From their perspective, it seemed like an uncommon innovation - and all they knew was that they wanted to help.
“I suggested we take a look at fruits,” said Tim Jing. “We’re a fruit-producing nation, so there must be something we can use!”
From there, they started to assess the most commonly consumed fruits in Australia, and settled on oranges - abundantly produced, its peel often discarded.
“We thought oranges were a good starting point because their peels already feel like leather,” said William. “We found that while vegan leather, based on fruits or plants, did exist, it was still a fairly new endeavour.”
Backyard innovators trial-and-error their way into orange-peel leather
Like all experiments, the first few attempts ended in failure.
“Our very first version crumbled in our hands!” said the team.
However, persistence paid off. Experimenting in Jeromy’s backyard, they produced Veather using household items, blending, heating and dehydrating orange peels.
“It was like our own personal cooking show!” explained Team Veather. “Firstly, we would blend the fruit into a pulp, then use a stove to cook the mix, adding organic additives. From there, the mixture is spread evenly along the tray of a fruit dehydrator and dried. After multiple failures and many post-experimentation learnings, we conducted more research, and made adjustments. Only through trial and error, and meticulously noting the different properties and characteristics of orange peel experiment could we reach our goal: to create material flexible yet unbreakable. In other words, Veather!”
The team split the work quite evenly, with William and Billy tasked with research. Together, they investigated different types of materials, and the properties, characteristics and production methods essential to the creation of Veather.
“They focused on tying research together with the different materials and additives that were necessary in order to create our desired form of Veather,” explained the team. “In addition, William was also our confident spokesperson who pitched at PFC Finals Night.” Tim and Vi Kien were Veather’s experiment team. They strove to create different versions of Veather, improving the formula and technique each time. Tim also served as resident designer while Vi Kien worked as Veather’s market analyst and marketer. Jeromy was the team’s man on the ground, providing the backyard and kitchen to conduct experiments, gather materials and equipment, and help with production.
PFC an opportunity to work with friends on a startup
Team Veather had always wanted to work on a project together, but the challenges of COVID and coming from different backgrounds and universities proved significant.
“The Peter Farrell Cup was an excellent opportunity to work towards a common goal, and most importantly, have fun together. Learning we would be given a lot of expert support and resources to help achieve our goals, no matter how big or small, propelled us into PFC. There’s no doubt our PFC experience helped us become more confident in voicing our ideas, and make them a reality.”
“For us, the most valuable part of PFC was how it allowed all of us to come together and innovate an idea that could help society. As the world faces more challenges, we wanted to try to make a difference in our own way. That’s how Veather was born.”
“COVID-19 really affected our ability to travel, meet and communicate,” said Team Veather. “During this time, it felt like we lacked the spark and energy you need to pursue something as a group. Our greatest takeaway from PFC was that it allowed us to reconnect and meet more in person, enabling us to create memories that we would forever remember. Our PFC experience will be a significant milestone for us, both in our personal lives, and for the future development of Veather.”
Keen to connect with Veather? Follow their LinkedIn and Instagram.