Lab-Grown Leather Startup Scales Up Tissue Size in Technical Milestone

A UK tissue engineering company that made headlines earlier in 2024 for producing what it describes as lab-grown leather has reported a significant scale-up in its tissue engineering capabilities. Lab-Grown Leather (LGL), formerly known as 3D Bio-Tissues and owned by BSF Enterprise, has produced animal skin tissue measuring up to 10×10 cm in area and over 2 mm in thickness (2.8 mm before tanning), building on the 0.5 mm thickness of tissue that was displayed at the Future Fabrics Expo leather show in June 2024.

The progress represents a meaningful step on the path from laboratory proof-of-concept to a material that could, in theory, be tanned and used in commercial leather goods. A 0.5 mm thickness is insufficient for most leather applications; a 2+ mm thickness, provided it can be produced consistently and at larger scales, begins to approximate the dimensions of leather that a tanner would recognize as viable input material.

Dr. Che Connon, Managing Director of BSF Enterprise, said the company has now developed a codified Standard Operating System that can be transferred, translated, and adopted by other companies to develop lab-grown leather using LGL’s technology. That claim—that the process is now codified and transferable—is critical. A laboratory technique that only works in a single research setting has limited commercial relevance; a documented, reproducible process is a technology that can be licensed, scaled, and integrated into existing manufacturing workflows.

“This technology has the potential to solve some of the fashion industry’s greatest ethical and environmental challenges,” Connon said. “Technological development is progressing at an impressive speed, and the process is now ready to advance from inside our research and development lab to a pilot-scale manufacturing operation to facilitate knowledge on scale-up processes as well as supply limited amounts to partners within the fashion industry.”

The characterization of lab-grown leather as a solution to “ethical and environmental challenges” reflects a specific value proposition: that a material produced from cells in a bioreactor, without requiring animal slaughter, will be viewed by some consumers as preferable to conventionally produced leather. Whether that value proposition translates into willingness to pay a premium—and whether the environmental footprint of lab-grown leather is demonstrably superior to that of responsibly produced conventional leather—remains to be established through life cycle assessment studies that are not yet publicly available.

LGL’s tissue-engineered skin uses only immortalized cells—isolated and collected from an adult animal following what the company describes as a strict and painless bioethics process—to produce a tannable skin structure in a laboratory. The company emphasizes that its lab-grown leather does not use any additional supporting materials such as plastics or cellulose in the final skin product, and that the process makes use of a serum-free and animal-free cell culture media supplement called City-mix, which accelerates tissue formation while reducing production costs.

The biodegradability claim is also notable: similar to farm-grown leather, LGL’s lab-grown material is expected to be completely biodegradable in 10–50 years. That positions it differently from some bio-based alternative materials that incorporate synthetic polymers and may persist in the environment for extended periods.

The timeline from a 10×10 cm tissue sample to a commercially meaningful volume of material is substantial. Even if the pilot-scale manufacturing operation that Connon referenced proceeds smoothly, the cost structure of lab-grown leather—which requires sterile bioreactor capacity, specialized cell culture media, and trained technical operators—is likely to be far higher than that of conventional leather for the foreseeable future. The initial applications are therefore likely to be in high-value, low-volume contexts where the material’s provenance commands a premium sufficient to justify the cost.

For the conventional leather industry, lab-grown leather is not an immediate competitive threat, but it is a signal. It indicates that there is investor and entrepreneurial interest in rethinking how leather-like materials are made. The response from the established industry—articulating the environmental and social benefits of responsibly produced, traceable conventional leather—will shape whether lab-grown alternatives remain a niche curiosity or become a meaningful presence in the materials landscape.

Source: Leather International – Lab-grown leather company increases skin sample size