Calf strain

Constraints in the supply of calfskins are having an impact on the luxury leathergoods sector, according to a past-president of ICHSLTA. 

Consumer tastes evolve and the changes can affect not only demand for finished leather, but also the raw material supply chain. It is good that there is a wide variety of renewable raw materials that tanners can use, and that many of these continue to be available in good quantities, for now at least. Good alternatives make it possible for the industry to continue to produce the leather that customers love, but the need to remain creative and adapt to new raw material realities as they emerge is going to stay on tanners’ to-do lists.

In recent history, the situation in the calfskin supply chain offers one of the best examples of this. At the start of December 2024, official calf slaughter numbers in the US were below 3,500 head per week. The weekly total had not been higher than 4,000 head since May. At the end of 2022, the figure was consistently above 7,000 head per week. At the same point in 2018, the total was usually nearer 12,000 head per week.

Leatherbiz reports these slaughter statistics every week, going back to July 2002. Those first entries for calf slaughter were above 20,000 head per week. Therefore, the supply of calfskins from the US has fallen by 50% in the last two years, by 70% in the last six years and by more than 80% since, roughly, the start of the century.

The beauty of box calf

The most famous place for finished calf leather is France. Specialist tanners in France and Italy have become renowned for making box calf, which is calf leather with an exceptionally smooth appearance. High-end luxury #leathergoods brands have often opted for French box calf for the bags at the very top of their accessory ranges.

Hermès, for example, has many versions of the Kelly bag but the original, from decades before the product captured the heart of Grace Kelly and was known only as the Sac à Main de Voyage, is made from box calf. The original Birkin bag was also made from box calf. Calf, too, has been the material of choice in Chanel’s Small Classic handbag. Kering’s biggest bag brands are originally from outside France, but Gucci, Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga all have popular bags in box calf. Not for nothing did France export more than €70 million worth of calfskins to Italy in 2023.

Supply lines

Just as in the US, however, the supply of the raw material required to make this leather is becoming harder to source from French abattoirs. The constraints are so great that past-president of the International Council of Hides, Skins, and Leather Traders Associations (ICHSLTA), Nick Winters , has said the decrease in the availability of calf skins is likely to have an effect on the luxury leathergoods sector.

Speaking at the 2024 Sustainable Leather Forum in Paris, Mr Winters, who has been based in France for 30 years and is currently vice-president for international relations at the French Hides & Skins Federation (FFCP), said the annual volume of calfskins coming onto the market in France has fallen by around 600,000 pieces in the last ten years.

He said that, in France, the availability of calfskins fell by around 7% in 2022 and by the same percentage again in 2023. In the first half of 2024, he said there had been a further decline, which he put at 5% year on year. He concluded that France’s total calfskin availability is now unlikely to reach 1 million pieces per year. “I remember the situation ten years ago,” he says. “The availability was more like 1.6 million calfskins per year. What this means is that the luxury industry is going to have to look for alternative materials.”

It is no accident that box calf has long been favoured by luxury brands. Mr Winters explains that the natural smoothness of the leather owes an immense amount to the quality of the skins. In France, calves are usually reared indoors, he says, and raised on milk for between four and six months. These gentle living conditions and the relative lack of scrapes and scars the animals receive make for high-quality skins that have great appeal for high-end brands. Alternatives that Nick Winters suggests include young bull hides, pointing out that this raw material, too, can be of very high quality.

Raw material roller coaster

Tanners are going to have to remain alert and creative when it comes to sourcing raw material that can allow them to meet the needs of demanding customers. Mr Winters argues that leather manufacturers, especially those in Europe, are going to face a number of wider raw material challenges in the near future.

Slaughter figures are going down in many important hide-supplying countries. He recalls livestock statistics showing 20 million head of cattle in France in 2014 or 2015. Within six years, the total had gone down by 3 million head. “That’s a huge reduction,” Mr Winters says, pointing out that there are similar falls in other large economies, including the US and Canada. “What this means is that there will be fewer high-quality hides available in years ahead.”

He also has concerns about the effect the European Union Deforestation Regulation could have on the availability of imported hides and says he has worked out that it could lead to a severe reduction in supply. This could, perhaps, amount to millions fewer good-quality hides coming to the European Union once the new rules come fully into application. Wet-salted and wet blue hides arrive from the US, while around 20% of Brazilian hide exports are destined for Europe, he says.

He calculates hide production within Europe at between 28 million and 30 million pieces per year, but says between 20% and 30% of this volume goes for export. “Those exports are going to continue to leave Europe,” Mr Winters says, “while fewer imported hides will come in. And where will those missing imported hides go? Well, they will go to be made into leather in Asia. This means that, potentially, there is an enormous danger here for European tanners.”

His argument is that these difficulties deserve the attention of the big supply chain partners that sit upstream and downstream of the tanneries. Hide and skin exports, globally, are worth €12 billion per year, Nick Winters says, while meat shipments have a value five times greater at €60 billion. He concludes: “If you take into account what happens to those hides and skins and include trade in finished leather and in finished products such as bags and footwear, the trade is worth more than €100 billion per year. In terms of international commerce, then, hides, skins and leather are more important than meat.” Classic calfskin, the Hermès Kelly bag. Credit: Shutterstock/Photo-Lime