Kyaia involved in Portuguese bioengineered material project
28/02/2018
Kyaia, the parent group of brands including Fly London and Foreva, is supporting the concept, which is called Satisfibre, a spin-off from the Centre for Biological Engineering at the Universidade do Minho in northern Portugal.
The material is based on bacterial cellulose. In a recent talk, one of the researchers involved in spinning off Satisfibre, Dr Fernando Dourado, said the group has worked for four years to try to find ways of making bacterial cellulose on a large scale at an affordable price.
“Among the few examples of success there have been with large-scale production of bacterial cellulose have come in the biomedical field,” Dr Dourado said, “but we have studied this for four years, investigating production of bacterial cellulose on a large scale at a competitive price, and we think there is real market potential in food, cosmetics and, we hope, other areas too.”
He went on to say that Kyaia founder, Fortunato Frederico, had got in touch with Satisfibre to ask about developing bacterial-cellulosic material in footwear. “It’s a green-tech solution,” Dr Dourado said, “and it has produced very interesting results. The material has properties that are almost like those of leather.”
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