Economies Of Scale
Barbara Thompson discovers how a pile of discarded salmon skins resulted in an innovative business opportunity.
What do you do with your leftover salmon skin? Eat it'? Throw it away? Feed it to the cat? John Fitzgerald, a fisherman from Cork, had somewhat grander aspirations for this by-product of the fishing industry and back in the mid-1990s, he set about fulfilling his ambition.
"I was running a restaurant in County Kerry at the time and salmon was on the menu every day so there were a lot of skins just being dumped. Salmon are such beautiful fish, and 1 couldn't help thinking there had to be a way to preserve them and put them to good use."
Salmon skin leather. It seemed like the perfect way to diversify his business. And how hard could it be? It was probably just as well that he had no idea quite how complicated the process of making top quality leather out of salmon skin actually is when he embarked on his quest.
His first attempts failed miserably, but he is not a man to give up easily. By his own admission he became obsessed with the project and spent all his time and money trying to perfect the tanning technique. The distinctive odour of salmon was just one problem to overcome: achieving a softness that would allow multiple applications was another major concern.
His search led him to the British school of leather technology at University College, Northampton, where the lecturers accepted the challenge with alacrity. It had never been done before at the college and in all it took nearly two years to crack the formula, which involves 11 different processes. The end result is versatile leather that is beautiful, supple and amazingly strong - four limes the tensile strength of bovine leather in fact.
'Think about it." John explains. "What does a cow do? Walks about a field, eats a bit of grass, walks about a bit more, maybe gets rained on now and then, but that's about it. The salmon, on the other hand, lives in both fresh and salt water, sometimes in extreme conditions and is moving all the time. Naturally the skin has to be tough to endure
all that."
Finally, after years of blood, sweat and a lot of fish scales, John Fitzgerald set up the Irish Salmon Skin Leather Company in April 2000. Having worked out the process for tanning the skins, and having developed a material that was both durable and attractive, he then had to find out what he could make with it. The answer was, just about anything.
Wallets, hipflasks, handbags and dog collars are just some of the products the company creates, while the fashion industry has been quick to pick up on the idea. Leading designer Paul Smith uses salmon leather to produce a range of stylish belts, and designer shoes, handmade in Italy, are next in line for the salmon treatment.
The leather can be produced in a variety of colours and there seems to be no limit to its applications, one of me more recent being bookbinding. Limited editions of Hugh Falkus' so-called lost manuscript Some of it was Fun (Medlar Press) have been bound using salmon skin leather.
The word is spreading far and wide and John was thrilled to learn that a specially commissioned table for the new Irish Embassy in Canberra, Australia, has been inlaid with his leather. "There's huge room for expansion." he agrees, "people love the fact that it's original and a bit quirky, and at the same time ecologically friendly."
John's vision has earned him the full quality mark from the Craft Council of Ireland and he now employs a highly skilled workforce of craftsmen and women at his Dublin tanner)'. He still enjoys his fishing, when he has time. and more than ever, is an ardent fan of the king of fish which provides the natural resource for his enterprise.
CountryLandowner- January, 2005
