Where does your Australian leather come from?

Gone are the days of supply chain diversity and transparency. Pair that with rising costs and suddenly you're faced with decisions that blur the lines between Made in Australia from Australian materials and Made in Australia from materials of unknown provenance.

At Buckaroo, we prefer not to blur the lines.

Transparency is crucial to maintaining the standard our products are known for and the standard our customers expect. As a small business, we've always had very personal relationships with both our suppliers and our customers. Those relationships have allowed us to ask the hard questions when needed, go behind the scenes, get to the bottom of things and respond to customer questions such as:

"Where does your Australian leather come from?"

Recently, at Buckaroo, we've ambitiously embarked on a journey to become a more circular manufacturer. This means understanding our materials more deeply and experiencing for ourselves what it really means when we say Australian leather and Australian labour.

As a conscious manufacturer, we've decided to go to the source and take a deeper dive into the life cycle of our Australian-tanned leather.

Geelong Leather, part of Hassel Trading, is a family-owned business originally established in 1926. Known as some of the best hide traders in the world, they have carved out a market for cow and kangaroo leather skins sought after by some of the world's largest luxury fashion brands.

Having the opportunity to tour a facility like this is one thing. In this instance, we were fortunate enough to bring a documentary filmmaker along for the day, but more on that later.

So where does it all start?

The answer is simple: the Australian beef industry.

Yes, leather is already inherently part of the recycling process. Australians consume a lot of beef, and it has been reported that upward of 8 million cattle are processed annually, according to Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA).

Of course, not all of those hides go on to become leather. There are nuances that make some breeds more suitable than others, along with environmental factors and logistical challenges that all play a role in transforming raw hides into quality leather.

For Geelong Leather, the clock starts ticking the moment the animal is processed. Hides must be chilled and transport must run like clockwork to ensure they remain fresh and can be worked through in a timely manner.

As Matt, our tanner, puts it:

"The only thing wasted in the whole process is the last moo."

Hides are processed in batches. Skins are hung on a network of hooks and moved through the first phase of treatment, where they are trimmed and stripped of any remaining fats. Those fats are collected and stockpiled for further processing into products such as tallow and biodiesel.

Once trimmed and devoid of fat, the hide is further treated to remove the hair. Through another process, that hair is broken down and mixed with chicken manure to produce fertiliser.

Once this stage is complete, the hide is ready to move through to the pickling process. Pickling essentially transforms raw hides into workable, pH-stabilised skins that can then move on to either vegetable tanning or the wet blue process.

At Geelong Leather, the process doesn't continue through to vegetable tanning. Instead, those hides are passed on to specialist tanneries. They do, however, convert thousands of hides into wet blue leather.

In the wet blue process, hides are washed and tumbled in chromium salts. This is essentially a pre-tanning stage that transforms raw hides into a stable material that resists decomposition and is easier to handle during later processing.

The use of chromium gives the leather its characteristic pale blue colour, which is why it is referred to as wet blue. This process prepares the leather for further tanning and finishing while providing the strength, flexibility and durability leather is known for.

Wet blue processing involves the hides being loaded into large wooden drums and tumbled for up to two days before being pressed to remove most of their moisture content. From there, the hides can be graded and prepared for the next stage, where colour and finish are applied.

Wet blue leather, also known as chrome-tanned leather, is renowned for its durability, making it ideal for footwear, accessories and upholstery. After tanning, the leather becomes soft and easy to work with while retaining the strength required for demanding applications.

Standing amongst thousands of hides and seeing the process firsthand was a reminder that leather doesn't simply appear on a shelf ready to be turned into a belt, bag or frog. It is the result of a complex supply chain, skilled trades, decades of knowledge and countless people doing their job well.

For us, understanding that journey matters.

If we're going to talk about Australian leather, we believe we should know exactly where it comes from, how it is processed and who is involved along the way.

The visit to Geelong Leather reinforced something we've always believed at Buckaroo: transparency matters. Because our customers deserve to know what they're buying and where it comes from.

As we continue our journey towards becoming a more circular manufacturer, we'll keep asking questions, visiting suppliers, challenging assumptions and learning more about the materials we work with every day.