A North Carolina biotech company has successfully produced lab grown cow leather from the cells of Angel, a living sanctuary cow, marking the first time consumers can purchase leather products from an animal that’s still alive.
A North Carolina company has created lab grown cow leather from cells in a bioreactor, and the cow is still alive. Cultivated Biomaterials, based in the Raleigh area, is already selling jewellery made from this material and working on wallets and watch bands. The leather comes from skin cells harvested from Angel, a Black Angus cow living at an animal sanctuary in upstate New York.
This could change how we make leather goods. Right now, the leather industry is worth more than $400 billion globally, but it’s tied to livestock farming, which produces tons of greenhouse gases and uses massive amounts of water.
George Engelmayr, the biomedical engineer who started the company, grows Angel’s cells on plant-based scaffolds made from materials like dandelion fluff and milkweed fibers. The cells produce collagen, the same protein that makes animal hides strong and flexible. After a few weeks, the lab grown cow leather gets tanned using tree bark powders instead of the harsh chromium salts most tanneries use.
The result looks like leather because it is leather, just grown differently. Engelmayr sets small pieces into silver jewellery settings under glass, calling them “biological gemstones.” In January, he even brought a pouch made from her cells to show Angel, though I’m guessing she wasn’t super impressed.
Angel lives at Sweet Farm, a nonprofit sanctuary that rescues farm animals. The sanctuary’s founders are excited about the project because it shows a future in which no one has to kill animals to make luxury goods.
The environmental benefits of lab grown cow leather could be huge. Engelmayr points to research suggesting cultivated leather might use 80% less water and create 90% fewer emissions than traditional leather. But he admits his lab hasn’t done an independent assessment yet. The key difference is that the water used in his process can be recycled, unlike in conventional tanneries.
See also: How Alt. Leather Created a Plant-Based Leather Alternative
Environmental experts say those numbers sound realistic but come with conditions. The actual impact depends on where the cell nutrients come from and what energy powers the growing equipment. It’s still a tiny operation, more like a science experiment than a full solution, but it’s a step toward meeting leather demand without destroying the planet.
Engelmayr isn’t the first person to try making alternative leather. Other companies have experimented with mushroom roots, bacterial materials, and lab-grown collagen. Some have made beautiful prototypes that looked ready for the runway. But making these materials durable enough and cheap enough for real-world use has been tough. One high-profile mushroom leather project failed because the material couldn’t meet luxury brand standards.
What makes Engelmayr’s lab grown cow leather different is that he’s actually selling products to regular people, and the leather comes from a specific living cow at a sanctuary. Right now, you can buy jewellery with tiny pieces of cultivated leather set into it. Wallets are next, then watch straps, and eventually handbags as the team figures out how to make bigger, stronger sheets.
Whether this can ever compete with regular leather from tanneries is still uncertain. Making enough material at a low enough price is the big challenge. Investors are being careful too, especially after watching cell-cultured meat companies struggle to scale up. But high-end fashion has always paid premium prices for rare materials with good stories, and this one definitely has both.
Engelmayr used to work in tissue engineering, growing heart valves and cardiac muscle, before switching to cellular agriculture. The lab techniques transfer pretty easily from medical work to making materials. He thinks of his product like a pearl, something valuable that comes from an animal without hurting it.
For now, this is about proving the concept works. The operation is small, the products are limited, and there’s a long way to go before lab grown cow leather could replace even a fraction of traditional leather. But every big change starts somewhere, and this might be the beginning of a fashion industry that doesn’t require slaughtering billions of animals every year.
The leather in your boots or car seats probably won’t come from a lab anytime soon. But in a world looking for ways to reduce emissions and treat animals better, growing real leather from living cow cells is at least pointing in an interesting direction.
