Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How a Singapore Factory Is Growing Leather from Mushroom Roots
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've bought a pair of leather shoes or a leather wallet in the last few years, there's a decent chance the hide came from a cow raised in Brazil or India, shipped to a tannery in Vietnam or Italy, treated with chromium salts that end up in local waterways, and then freighted halfway around the world to a retailer near you. That supply chain is roughly ten thousand years old. And it's about to get a real competitor. Luna: You're talking about lab-grown leather — mushroom leather, cactus leather, all those plant-based alternatives that have been showing up in sneakers and handbags. Lucas: Exactly. But I want to focus on one specific company and one specific material because the claims are getting specific enough that we can actually check the math. There's a Singapore-based startup called Mycoworks — they've built a pilot facility just outside the city that grows leather from mycelium, which is essentially the root structure of mushrooms. Luna: Wait — so you're not harvesting mushrooms and stitching their caps together. You're growing the roots in a lab and then processing them into a sheet? Lucas: Exactly right. The process looks more like a brewery than a farm. They take a strain of fungus, feed it sawdust and agricultural byproducts in stainless steel fermentation tanks, and within about nine days the mycelium forms a dense, interwoven mat that gets harvested, tanned — using non-toxic binders, not chromium — and then finished into a material that feels and stretches like cowhide. The company claims it can produce a square foot of leather for roughly the same cost as conventional leather once they reach commercial scale. Luna: And what is conventional leather costing right now? I've seen numbers all over the place. Lucas: It varies by grade, but the benchmark is roughly five dollars per square foot for commodity cowhide. That's the number Mycoworks is targeting. They're not there yet — their current pilot production probably costs two or three times that — but they've raised over a hundred million dollars from investors including Prime Movers Lab and the fashion conglomerate Kering, which owns Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Balenciaga. Luna: So the luxury houses are already in. That's a big signal. If Gucci is buying samples, the material science has to be convincing. Lucas: The thing is, when I say 'mushroom leather,' people usually imagine something that feels like cork or styrofoam. But the samples I've handled — and I have a small swatch here — it's surprisingly close to calfskin. It has that same slight grain, the same supple flex, and it takes dye exactly the way you'd expect. The real question isn't whether it can match the tactile feel. It's whether the unit economics scale. Luna: Right — because even if the luxury market adopts it at a premium, the environmental impact argument only matters if it replaces the millions of cows slaughtered each year for leather. That requires commodity pricing. Lucas: And that's the manufacturing challenge. Mycoworks uses a process called 'solid-state fermentation' — think of it like growing mushrooms on logs, but controlled in a sterile environment. The yield per tank, the cycle time, the energy input, the labor — every variable needs to be optimized the way Intel optimized chip fabrication. The difference is that Intel sells a finished microprocessor for hundreds of dollars. Mycoworks sells a commodity material for five dollars a square foot. The margins are razor thin. Luna: So they need massive volume to break even. That means building factories that look more like a paper mill than a mushroom farm. Lucas: Exactly. And that's where the real story is — because scaling biology is fundamentally different from scaling mechanics. You can't just build a bigger tank and expect the mycelium to grow the same way. The heat distribution changes, the airflow changes, the risk of contamination goes up. It's the same problem that every biotech manufacturer faces when they go from lab bench to commercial plant. And a lot of them fail at that step. Luna: That makes me think of the Impossible Foods story — they spent years in R&D just figuring out how to make plant-based heme at scale, and they still rely on a massive facility in Oakland. But they got there. Lucas: And that's a useful parallel. Impossible Foods proved that a bio-engineered ingredient could go from a white paper to a Burger King Whopper. Mycoworks is trying to do the same thing for leather. They've already opened a commercial-scale facility in South Carolina — a hundred and fifty thousand square feet — and they're aiming to produce millions of square feet per year by 2027. Luna: And the environmental upside is real? I've seen conflicting lifecycle analyses on these materials. Lucas: The data from Mycoworks' internal audit, which was verified by a third party, shows their process uses about ninety-nine percent less water than conventional leather and produces roughly eighty percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions. The biggest win is that there's no need for a tannery — which is typically the dirtiest part of the leather supply chain. Tanneries use chromium, sulfides, and formaldehyde. The mycelium material uses a non-toxic, water-based tanning process. So the local water pollution angle basically disappears. Luna: But what about the feedstock? They're feeding the fungus agricultural waste — sawdust, corn husks, that kind of thing. If they scale to millions of square feet, does that put pressure on those waste streams? Lucas: It's a fair question, but the volumes are still tiny compared to the waste produced by agriculture globally. The US alone generates over a hundred million tons of corn stover — leaves and stalks — every year. Mycoworks' projected demand for their South Carolina plant is maybe a few thousand tons. So there's plenty of room. The limiting factor right now is capital, not feedstock. Luna: This is fascinating because it really gets at the heart of what we talk about on this show — how a new manufacturing process moves from a neat idea to something that actually competes in the global market. And it's not just about the technology. It's about the factory design, the supply chain logistics, the unit costs. Lucas: Exactly. And honestly, that's one of the reasons we're able to do a deep dive like this every day. This show is listener-supported — a handful of people chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's what makes it possible for us to spend the time visiting factories, reading the technical papers, and really understanding the numbers. If these conversations have helped you think more clearly about business or manufacturing, joining that small group helps keep it going. No pressure, just wanted to mention it. Luna: Yeah, and it's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. Now, back to the mycelium — let's talk about the luxury brands that are actually using this stuff. Lucas: So far, the most public partnership is with Hermès — wait, that's not right. Actually, Hermès did a collaboration with a different mycelium company called MycoWorks in 2021, but that was a limited run. The bigger story is that Kering, the conglomerate that owns Gucci, has invested directly in Mycoworks and is testing the material across multiple brands. And LVMH has its own partnership with another biotech firm. Luna: So the two biggest luxury groups in the world are both betting on this. That tells me the quality is there, and the supply chain is the next bottleneck. Lucas: And that's what Mycoworks is solving with the South Carolina plant. They've designed the facility to be modular — they can add fermentation units as demand grows, which is a smart way to de-risk the capital expenditure. If demand from Gucci or Saint Laurent comes in at a certain level, they flip on another module. It's not a billion-dollar bet upfront. Luna: What about the price point for consumers? A Gucci handbag made from mushroom leather — would it cost more than the cowhide version? Lucas: Initially, yes. The first commercial products will probably carry a premium because the material cost is higher and the novelty carries marketing value. But Mycoworks' long-term goal is to reach price parity with mid-grade leather, around five dollars per square foot. At that point, the cost becomes a non-issue, and the decision shifts entirely to sustainability and supply chain resilience. Luna: And that's the inflection point — when a brand like Nike or Adidas can switch to mycelium leather for a running shoe without raising the retail price. That's when the real volume kicks in. Lucas: Exactly. And there are already signs that's happening. Adidas has released a shoe with a mycelium upper, and they're testing it in limited runs. But they haven't committed to full-scale production yet. They're waiting for the cost curve to come down. That's the classic chicken and egg problem for any new material — you need volume to lower costs, but you need lower costs to get volume. Luna: How does the carbon footprint compare to synthetic leather — like the polyurethane stuff that's already cheap? Lucas: That's a great point because synthetic leather is plastic-based, and it's actually worse than cowhide on some metrics. Polyurethane is derived from fossil fuels, and it doesn't biodegrade. Mycoworks' mycelium leather is compostable at end of life, and the carbon footprint is roughly half that of synthetic leather. So it's not just competing with animal leather — it's also a better alternative to the vegan leathers that are actually just plastic. Luna: So the 'vegan leather' label can be misleading. And that's something consumers are starting to learn. Lucas: Exactly. The terminology is a mess. But the manufacturing reality is clear: growing materials biologically is fundamentally different from synthesizing them chemically or harvesting them from animals. And the companies that figure out how to do it at scale are going to disrupt a multi billion dollar industry. Luna: What's your read on the timeline? When do we see mycelium leather in a mass-market product, not just a luxury bag? Lucas: I think we're three to five years away from seeing it in a mid-priced shoe or a car interior. The South Carolina plant is supposed to be fully operational by late 2027. If they hit their production targets, and if the big footwear brands commit, then 2028 or 2029 is when you'd see it in a Walmart shoe or a Ford seat. But that's a big if — manufacturing biology at scale has a way of revealing surprises. Luna: Like contamination, inconsistent growth, unexpected energy costs — all the things that killed earlier biofuel startups. Lucas: Exactly. The history of industrial biotech is littered with companies that had a great lab process and a terrible factory. Mycoworks seems to be approaching it with the right discipline — they hired a former Tesla manufacturing engineer to run their plant, and they're using data analytics to monitor every batch. But the proof is in the production run, not the press release. Luna: Alright, so let's keep an eye on South Carolina. I'll be watching for the first batch of Gucci bags with a mycelium tag. Lucas: And I'll be watching the quarterly production numbers. Because if they can hit that five-dollar target, we're looking at a genuine industrial revolution in materials. Not just a replacement — a better material that costs the same. That's the holy grail.