Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How a Dutch Factory Is Making Leather from Mushrooms
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, have you ever seen how a mushroom's root system — the mycelium — can be turned into something that looks and feels exactly like cowhide? Luna: I've seen pictures, but I've never held it. Is it really that convincing? Lucas: It's remarkably close. I visited a factory in the Netherlands last month — about an hour east of Amsterdam — where they're producing sheets of mycelium leather at commercial scale. The company is called MycoWorks, though there's also a Dutch firm called Mylo — actually, Mylo is the material name, the company behind it is Bolt Threads. But the factory I saw is run by a company called Ecovative's spinoff, MyForest Foods. They're using a process that grows mycelium on agricultural waste, then treats it with plant-based tanning agents. Luna: So it's not just pressing dried mushrooms together? There's actual processing involved. Lucas: Exactly. The mycelium is grown in trays for about two weeks, forming a dense mat of interwoven fibers. That mat is then compressed, dried, and tanned — just like animal hide. The result is a material that has the same tensile strength as cow leather, and it can be dyed, embossed, and stitched with existing equipment. Luxury brands are already using it. Hermès released a mycelium version of their Victoria bag in 2024, and Stella McCartney has a line of mycelium-based accessories. Luna: I remember that Hermès bag. It was priced around $3,500 — comparable to their regular leather bags. So the cost is already competitive at the high end. Lucas: That's the interesting part. Right now, production cost for mycelium leather is roughly $50 per square meter. High-quality cow leather runs about $40 to $60 per square meter. So they're in the same ballpark. But the environmental difference is huge. Growing mycelium uses about 90% less water than raising cattle, and the carbon footprint is about one-eighth of traditional leather. Plus, no methane emissions from livestock. Luna: What about the tanning process? Traditional leather tanning is notoriously toxic — chromium runoff and all that. Lucas: Good question. Most mycelium producers use plant-based tanning agents — things like tannins from tree bark or mimosa extract. So the process avoids heavy metals entirely. The factory I visited has zero wastewater discharge. They recycle all the water used in processing. That's a huge selling point for brands trying to clean up their supply chains. Luna: And how scalable is it? I know a lot of bio-based materials struggle to move from the lab to full production. Lucas: That's the challenge. MycoWorks opened a commercial-scale facility in South Carolina in 2024, and Bolt Threads has a partnership with a large contract manufacturer in Asia. But the Dutch factory is smaller — they produce about 100,000 square meters per year. That's enough for maybe 20,000 handbags. To really compete with the global leather market — which is about 2 billion square meters annually — they need to scale up dramatically. The bottleneck is growing the mycelium quickly and consistently. Luna: So the technology works, but the economics of scale aren't there yet. It reminds me of the early days of lab-grown diamonds. Lucas: Yeah, exactly the same trajectory. Lab-grown diamonds now account for about 20% of the diamond market by volume, and prices have dropped dramatically. Mycelium leather could follow a similar curve. In fact, one industry analyst I spoke with predicted that by 2030, mycelium leather could capture 5% of the global leather market — that's about 100 million square meters. That would require a lot more factories like the one in the Netherlands. Luna: Before we go further — and I know this is a bit of a shift — I've been thinking about something. We're talking about a whole new industry being built. And we're able to have this conversation in depth because we don't have to squeeze it between ads. That's something I really value about this show. Lucas: It's a deliberate choice. We don't run ads on any of the Fexingo shows. And the reason we can do that is that some listeners choose to support us directly. If these conversations have moved your work forward in some small way, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just an option to keep this ad-free. Luna: Exactly. It's a model that works because of you. Now back to those mushrooms — you mentioned the growth process takes about two weeks. How does that compare to raising a cow for leather? Lucas: It's night and day. A beef cow takes about 18 to 24 months to reach slaughter weight. With mycelium, you're talking about 14 days from inoculation to harvest. That means you can iterate and improve the material much faster. If a batch has a defect, you can adjust the growth conditions and see results in two weeks. With cattle, you'd have to wait two years. Luna: That speed also makes it easier to customize — different thicknesses, textures, colors. You could even grow the material into a specific shape, like a shoe upper, without cutting and sewing. Lucas: That's exactly where the research is heading. Some labs are experimenting with growing mycelium directly into the shape of a handbag or a car seat. That would eliminate waste entirely — no cutting scraps. And because the mycelium fibers self-weld, you might not even need stitching. It's a fundamentally different manufacturing paradigm. Luna: But for now, the Dutch factory is still producing flat sheets that get cut and sewn. What's their biggest customer? Lucas: They're not naming names, but industry rumors point to a major German automaker. Car interiors use a lot of leather — about 4 square meters per vehicle on average. If mycelium leather can meet automotive standards for durability, UV resistance, and flame retardancy, that would be a massive market. I'm talking tens of millions of square meters per year. Luna: What about the price point for automotive? Carmakers are notoriously cost-sensitive. Lucas: They need to get below $30 per square meter to be competitive with synthetic leathers like PVC and polyurethane. That's a lower price point than today's $50. But if they can scale production volume by a factor of ten, costs should drop significantly. It's a classic learning curve. The first million square meters are expensive; the next ten million get cheaper. Luna: Are there any other bio-based leathers that could compete? I know pineapple leather — Piñatex — has been around for a while, and there's apple leather from Italy. Lucas: Those are made from agricultural waste fibers bonded with a polymer binder — they're not fully bio-based. Mycelium leather is 100% fungal biomass, no synthetic binder. That gives it a different hand feel and breathability. Also, mycelium can be grown to specific densities, so you can make a soft suede-like material or a firm structural leather. That versatility is unique. Luna: So it's not just a replacement — it's a new material category with its own properties. But consumers have to be willing to pay a premium for sustainability. Lucas: Right now, the early adopters are luxury buyers who care about provenance. Hermès customers aren't balking at the price because the story matters — it's a limited edition, it's innovative. But for the mass market, the price has to come down. The Dutch factory is betting that it will, and they're expanding their capacity to 500,000 square meters per year by 2028. Luna: That's five times their current output. Are they getting government subsidies or private investment? Lucas: Both. The Dutch government's circular economy fund provided a low-interest loan of about $10 million. And they've raised another $30 million from venture capital. The investors include a consortium of fashion and automotive companies. So there's real industrial interest, not just hype. Luna: One more question: does mycelium leather biodegrade at the end of its life? That's a big advantage over synthetic leathers that sit in landfills for centuries. Lucas: It does. In lab tests, mycelium leather buried in soil lost 90% of its mass within 60 days. Compare that to polyurethane leather, which shows almost no degradation after a year. But there's a catch — if it's dyed with synthetic pigments or treated with certain waterproofing chemicals, biodegradation slows down. So the industry needs to develop fully compostable finishes. That's an active area of research. Luna: So the material is promising, but the system around it — dyes, coatings, supply chains — has to catch up. Lucas: That's a fair summary. The Dutch factory is proof that mycelium leather can be made at scale. Now the question is whether the rest of the industry can adapt to make it truly circular. If they can, we might look back at this moment as the beginning of the end for traditional leather. Luna: I think we'll be watching that timeline closely. Thanks for the tour, Lucas. Lucas: Always a pleasure. Next time, maybe we'll visit a factory that's making mycelium packaging — that's another fascinating application. Luna: I'd love that. Until then.