Four years ago, Mexicans Adrián López Velarde and Marte Cázarez Duarte created an alternative material to animal skins by turning cacti (nopal) into a biomaterial called desserto. This vegan ‘leather’ has become one of the preferred materials for fashion brands looking to offer more sustainable products around the world. Now Velarde and Duarte have introduced another innovation with the development of the first vegan ‘leather’ based on agave.
FashionUnited spoke to the inventors of Desserto and the company’s founders Adriano Di Marti about the development of this new material and how ‘agave leather’ is not only an alternative to animal leather, but also an opportunity for more sustainable practices in the tequila industry.
Desserto Agave: Opportunity for the tequila and fashion industries to collaborate
“Since Desserto was founded, we have not let up in our research and development efforts and we realized that there are other fibers in Mexico that could provide us with the same or even better raw material. We examined which typical plants in Mexico are eligible and which of them meant more waste. So we came to the conclusion that the agave is the one to work with next,” recalls Duarte. “The tequila industry, which is one of the most important in Mexico, produces a lot of waste throughout its process. It leaves behind a lot of organic waste, like leaves and bagasse (sugar cane), and we saw an opportunity to investigate how to turn that waste into something useful.”
The tequila industry in the state of Jalisco is not only a cultural landmark but also has strong economic importance. National production of agave (the plant used to make tequila) in 2020 was 1,519,000 tons, of which 74.3 percent came from Jalisco, generating an estimated state revenue of 24,650 million Mexican pesos ( around 13.3 billion euros). But as the industry continues to generate revenue and grow internationally, so does the amount of waste, and with it the environmental impact.
It was precisely this impact that the founders of Desserto became aware of and for a number of years analyzed how they could use their technology to transform agave into a leather-like material. “In Mexico, around 360,000 tons of bagasse are produced every year. This is usually thrown away or sold to brick factories where it is burned and used as a cheap fuel that creates air pollution and ash, so it’s not sustainable at all,” says Velarde. “So we saw an opportunity for the tequila industry and the fashion industry to work together in a sustainable way.”
This is how the Desserto Agave Limited Edition was born. This new biomaterial allows the tequila and agave production chain to expand and reach the fashion industry. The tequila industry is not only innovating in the way they make their product, but is now helping to create environmentally conscious products.
From tequila to fashion
Unlike its flagship product Desserto, where the company grows Nopal cacti and uses it as a raw material for its alternative ‘leather’, for Desserto Agave the company does not grow agaves. Instead, it collects the agave waste from various tequila factories and then processes it into its sustainable material. For their first production they used 12 tons of bagasse from which they made 1 ton of raw material that could be processed into this sustainable material. This ton of raw material was enough to produce about 8,000 meters of agave ‘leather’. That might sound like a large amount of material, but there’s a lot more where it’s coming from. Velarde says that for every liter of tequila produced, about 7 kilograms of bagasse are produced.
Converting the waste from tequila production into a new textile extends the lifespan of the agave plant, which takes six to seven years before it can be harvested. After harvesting, it’s made into tequila, but the fibers aren’t needed and end up in the trash. This waste is now given a new life by being collected and processed into Desserto Agave. “The tequila makers didn’t believe us when we told them we would pay them for their waste. They’re used to seeing him as garbage. But we did. We sent a truck to pick up the bagasse and paid them for it. It is a very good way to add value to the raw materials already abundant in Mexico. There is so much potential,” says Velarde.
Although the raw material is plentiful, turning the agave used to make tequila into a new vegan ‘leather’ has not been easy. Developing a new material is a complex challenge, even for Duart and Velarde, who have been deepening their experience for years, working on machines and special technologies for this purpose.
New leather alternative on the market
“Working with agaves is completely different than working with nopal cacti. Agaves are even more complicated because their fibers are tougher. However, starting the process was a bit easier as we already had the machines and the experience to calculate times, processes and development. So this time it was easier and faster to develop a new fiber,” explains Duarte. Velarde adds that these fibers are ‘very hard’, so the machines had to be redesigned to process them.
“We have improved our technology together with Desserto and this has enabled us to adapt the machines so that we can also process harder fibres. At first, however, we believed that this was not possible because the machines could break. Our engineering team had to consider what adjustments were needed to eventually produce this material.”
The new material, Desserto Agave, can be used in the same way as ‘cactus leather’ (Nopal), for example for bags, purses, accessories and much more. One of the differences is that this new material feels softer. It also has an organic content of up to 89 percent. Duarte adds that the smell is also a little different. Unlike nopal, which has a sweeter aroma (like a cookie, say), the new agave material smells more of nature, earth, something older.
“I was very happy when it finally worked, because at first we thought we couldn’t process the fibers. The first roll we received was a shade between brown and orange, similar to the color bagasse is when wet. That reminded me how complicated the process was and how much we risked, like the machines, to make it happen. But in the end everything turned out fine and now there is a new alternative on the market,” concludes Velarde.
This article originally appeared on FashionUnited.uk. Translated and edited by Simone Preuss.