Tanning Agent
Södra Skogsägarna (Södra; Växjö, Sweden; www.sodra.com) is investing in a production line at Värö that will create a tanning agent from tree bark. This new tannin can be used to process leather in a more environmentally friendly way, the company says. Scheduled to be commissioned in 2026, the plant will have the capacity to produce tannins for millions of square meters of leather.
Since 2006, Södra Innovation, a business area within the member-owned forest group, Södra, has been exploring how tannins found in the bark of trees can be efficiently processed and used as tanning agents. Using bark for tanning is not new, but Södra is now industrializing the process in which the tanning substance is leached from the bark and turned into a product for tanning leather. “With this new patented process, we can now make a product from an, until now, unused resource,” says Catrin Gustavsson, business area manager at Södra Innovation.