A new leather alternative aims to find new uses for the over 50,000 tonnes of kiwifruit rejected in New Zealand each year.

Shelley Houston founded KiwiLeather Innovations four years ago.

Then, based in Papamoa, her son had been bringing home an abundance of waste or rejected kiwifruit from his work at one of the orchards.

She was surprised to learn just how much kiwifruit waste there was – much of this is used by farmers to help feed stock.

“I used to be quite a keen baker, but I found there’s only so much baking you can do with kiwifruit.”

She set about trying to develop new alternatives for the waste byproduct.

“I’d seen overseas in Europe that they make a lot of biomaterials and things like that out of mangoes and apples and grapes, so I thought I’d give it a go with kiwifruit.

Houston said the resulting prototype had worked better than she thought it would.

She’s worked with Scion Research to perfect the formula and create a more viable product.

The kiwifruit leather is plant-based and plastic-free.

She said many people had remarked that the alternative “smells just like leather”.

Its durability means it can be used as a leather alternative.

The plant and bio-based leather alternative can be used for many different products.

Houston said they were targeting the automotive sector, with companies like Tesla using cactus leather, and furniture manufacturers.

“There’s just not enough product out there, enough bio-materials for these companies to be able to create that sort of thing.”

Houston has partnered with a number of packhouses that provided her with kiwifruit that they couldn’t use.

She said it was good to give growers more value while repurposing the byproduct.

Houston said people could expect to see prototype products released over the next few months.

- RNZ