New Zealand sheepskin idea valued at $100m per year
10/07/2013
The LASRA Ovine Consortium project, funded by the ministry for business, innovation and employment set out to find ways of processing sheep and lambskins to make leather that is durable enough to compete with bovine leather in the mainstream shoe market, rather than just in niche markets such as those of slippers and UGG-style boots with soft uppers.
Researchers at Massey University scientists have been analysing the molecular structure of sheep and lamb skins to find a way to make them as strong as bovine leather. A Massey professor specialising in nanotechnology, Professor Richard Haverkamp, and two LASRA doctoral students, Melissa Basil-Jones and Katie Sizeland, came up with a technique of using enzyme technology to process sheepskins.
LASRA senior research scientist, Dr Richard Edmonds, presented the results of this research at the IULTCS Congress in Istanbul in May 2013.
Media in New Zealand have now reported that the government has put the potential value of the idea at almost $100 million per year and LASRA has filed for a patent on the process.
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