Saint-Fons (France) (AFP)
Leather from the sea? Three young entrepreneurs inaugurate Thursday their workshops near Lyon, where they hope to enhance some of the 50,000 tons of fish skins that leave each year to the landfill in France.
The premises - 300 square meters located in an industrial area of Saint-Fons - are still very modest. But their company, Ictyos Cuir marin de France, hopes to reach within five years the industrial stage.
"We all have a little in mind the idea that fish leather smells bad," concedes Benjamin Malatrait, one of the founders of the startup. But it's wrong, he continues, sample by hand, "the marine leather does not smell fish!".
Of a waste, Ictyos is even a luxury product: a tanned salmon skin sells for between 30 and 40 euros. This leather, flexible and resistant, "close to the lizard's", is particularly used for high-end wristwatches.
Every year, the company intends to release a new range. After salmon, it will be sturgeon in 2020.
- fleshing and hoarding -
Marine leather has been known for centuries. The precious shagreen is none other than a ray leather developed under Louis XV. But to date, only three companies in France work this raw material, in a very artisan way.
In the Ictyos workshop, the thawed skins are freed from their residual flesh ("fleshing"), then chipped and cleaned in a large rotating drum, the fuller.
This is where tannins and tinctures are added. The skins are then dried in the open air, before passing between the claws of a softening machine ("pounding"), and then pressed.
To arrive at the finished product, two weeks of treatments are necessary, of which 80% of the time is in full view.
- Crowdfunding -
Ictyos was founded by three comrades from a school of chemical engineers. The oldest is now 27 years old.
The choice of Lyon was imposed by its geographical location, at the crossroads of Paris, the capital of luxury, Italy, first market of exotic leathers, and Switzerland, home of the watch industry.
In addition, Lyon is home to the only leather engineering school, Itech, and the Leather Technical Center, where aspiring entrepreneurs have been able to refine their processes.
The three chemical musketeers launched with 300.000 euros, coming for a third of the banks, a third of aid to the creation of company and a third third of a campaign of crowdfunding, buckled in 25 days. "We had to refuse the world!"
And if the tanning industry suffers from a bad image, Ictyos wants to be green.
First step: a non-polluting skins supply circuit, going through agreements with wholesalers, carp breeders from the neighboring Dombes and even ... a large chain of sushi.
Another strong choice, give up the chrome that today serves to tan almost all the leather in the world ... Except that of stool, horses are allergic to it.
The founders of Ictyos have developed processes based on vegetable matter. "It took 1,500 tests and two years to develop specific tannins for each species of fish," says Malatrait.
The company still needs to install equipment that will recycle 97% of the water needed for vegetable tanning. It also tests lasers to dispense with chemicals for dyeing.
- First in a generation -
Today, the company's production capacity does not exceed 2,000 skins per month. But its founders do not intend to stop there.
In five years, they are aiming for an industrial size by taking over a closed installation, with its equipment, or building a new site, with new machines. An investment of 5 to 20 million euros which will compel them to open the capital of their company.
A small revolution in the tannery, decimated by deindustrialization: for at least a generation, no factory was launched ex-nihilo in France, according to the French Federation of tannery-tanning.
© 2019 AFP