Fruitleather is the brain child of a couple of young designers who graduated from Rotterdam’s Willem de Kooning Academie. They got their inspiration from a trip to the market at the Binnenrotte in their university town. Being the largest open-air market in the Netherlands, it not only attracts huge numbers of fruit and veg traders, but also generates tons of waste. No less than 3.500 kilograms of waste are produced each market day at the Binnenrotte. A waste of food, yes, but also a financial pain for the traders, who had to process all this waste.   

Fruitleather came up with a way to transform this waste into a kind of leather. The young students got the idea from certain chefs who use fruit and vegetables to dress their plates. They squash, cook and dry these ingredients to get leathery crusts. Fruitleather uses the same technique to create a bag that’s entirely made from fruit and vegetable waste.

Though Fruitleather started as a graduation project, it’s still very much alive. The students use it to draw attention to the problem of food waste. In addition, they want to set up collaborations with other companies to further develop the material and to look for new applications.