Patagonia bison leather work boots are in limited supply
Outdoor brand Patagonia has begun putting bison hides to good use after becoming alarmed that the material was going to waste.
For a number of years, Patagonia has been sourcing bison meat from a supplier called the Wild Idea Buffalo Company and using it to make a jerky product for the range of easy-to-pack provisions it sells for outdoor enthusiasts to take on treks and expeditions.
It has said it likes the source of the product because, by roaming the Great Plains in tight, nomadic herds and cropping only the tops of perennial grasses, the bison leave root systems intact, which keeps soil from washing away. “This promotes greater biodiversity and carbon sequestration, which can help mitigate the climate crisis,” the outdoor brand said.
However, after becoming uneasy about the difficulty that the South Dakota-based Wild Idea Buffalo Company’s had in finding buyers for all of the hides, Patagonia decided to use any leftover material itself in work boots.
It has explained that American bison have had to develop hides that are thick but highly breathable to be able to survive winter blizzards and searing heat of Great Plains summers, making the leather tanners can produce from the raw material ideal for making durable footwear.
It is working with a partner manufacturer in Portugal to create the footwear, which it has called Wild Idea Work Boots. It will only make the volume of boots that it can from available leftover hides.
The hides are being tanned by the Horween Leather Company in Chicago using as the tanning agent olive leaf extract from German tanning technology developer Wet-Green.
