Mike Redwood

Columnist

International Leather Maker

Several recent articles have been reporting on significant numbers of former strict vegetarians and vegans switching to “flexitarian” eating, driven by concerns about protein quality and the ultra-processed nature of many meat substitutes.

A 2025 study in New Zealand showed that while most vegans and vegetarians were eating adequate amounts of protein, about half were well below the recommended daily intake for two critical amino acids — lysine and leucine — when digestibility is taken into account.

Ultra-processed food (UPF) concerns have impacted plant-based diets particularly hard as they are strongly disliked by those paying attention to their diets. Multiple studies over the last five years have shown meat substitutes as loaded with salt, preservatives, thickeners and a variety of additives with up to two thirds of EU citizens considering them unhealthy.

Curiously, flexitarian diets, which have been growing across the world, are remarkably similar to the one my wife and I enjoyed when living in Tuscany in the 1970s. While lingering post war austerity was giving way to slowly rising meat consumption, meat remained an expensive purchase. Despite our apartment in Florence and our car being provided by our S.Croce tannery, we still could only afford meat once or twice a week.

We had a diet emphasising fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil and moderate animal products. There was a great deal of olive oil and local wine with limited red meat, poultry and fish. And, of course, top quality ice cream.

A more globally balanced diet will need to become the final outcome. Many countries who binge on meat will continue to calm their consumption while vegetarians and those currently in food poverty will start to consume more. The question arises of how a more widely flexitarian or Mediterranean approach will impact the livestock industry, and thus the leather industry.

Thinking forward in this case always carries a large speculative element, but it is necessary for scenario planning. Looking forward to 2035, a core finding, however counter-intuitive, suggests that flexitarianism will change but not hugely shrink the livestock industry in this period. It is projected that global meat consumption will grow by 48 million metric tonnes led by low- and middle-income countries seeing a big rise in per capita intake. This growth in Africa and Asia outweighs volume reduction as Western diets moderate.

From no meat to less, but better, meat

While this does not imply the decline of livestock industries or leather, we do need to expect lower overall livestock volumes and higher value per animal with a much greater emphasis on provenance, traceability and full-animal utilisation. Human behavioural change will shift the policy battle fought on the supply side for leather from elimination to moderation: from no meat to less, but better, meat.

For the leather sector, the implications are significant since hides and leather supply will face a gradual tightening of premium-grade hides from high-income markets where cattle breeds, feed regimes and disease management produce the best raw material. Only 55% of the world’s cattle hides currently enter the leather value chain, so any reduction in Western cattle slaughter numbers contracts the premium end of raw material supply, even as volume from developing-world herds continues to grow.

Smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Latin America could well face the greatest vulnerability to any policy-driven demand suppression, since livestock is both their nutritional safety net and primary income source. But Beatrice Mwasi says: “Kenya’s leather sector does not have a quality problem in hides and skins. It has an incentive problem,” noting at a recent conference that better quality hides and skins needed to be priced separately to create a market incentive. While we cannot ignore the different African cattle breeds and the prevalence of thorn bushes in many areas, the more pastoral farming methods in most of Africa comes close to the regenerative agriculture being introduced in the West.

Globally, the livestock industry will take two separate directions with the high-volume price-driven commodity systems coming under pressure and likely to consolidate and become very export dependent. On the other hand, lower intensity pasture-based systems should show growth with links to careful environmental stewardship. These high integrity systems will vary greatly by region, just as regenerative farming must be individually tailored to fit each local situation.

Ruminant livestock remains essential for converting grass into food and maintaining landscapes unsuitable for cropping; demonstrating the point that livestock pastoral systems are grounded in biological and land-based constraints. On the other hand, reduced livestock intensity will lower demand for feed crops such as maize and soya, and release some land for mixed farming, selva-pastoral approaches, forestry and environmental restoration.

Associated with this is the parallel accelerated growth of white meat from pigs and poultry. The current dominant narrative suggests that poultry and, to a lesser extent, pork, are “responsible” meats because they produce less methane than ruminants. But this masks a set of trade-offs that are substantial and, in many respects, increasingly uncomfortable. Certainly, I find them hard to accept as they involve animal welfare, intensive feed crop production and often unsatisfactory waste management systems. And we should not ignore the potential for disease to come from such intensive rearing.

Pigs and chickens overwhelmingly eat cereals and soya — foods that compete directly with human diets and require arable land, fertiliser, pesticides and water. Living conditions for broiler chickens throughout the world are hard to accept and the pig-skyscrapers in China do little more than highlight the uncomfortable ground level arrangements found in Europe and the U.S. which have been reported as confining pigs in “barren and overcrowded environments” at densities that preclude most natural behaviours. It is noted that the intensive use anti microbials is likely to lead to antimicrobial resistance risks for human populations and that overall, such intensive rearing magnifies rather than reduces biosecurity risks. I much prefer red meat.

A happy cow provides a better hide

Regardless, a flexitarian approach is almost certainly going to create a quality-over-quantity shift as consumers who eat meat less become willing to pay more per occasion. If meat becomes more occasional and valued welfare conditions should improve, more meat will be fully labelled with provenance. Greater emphasis on origin, traceability and knowledge of the associated farming systems will create a better narrative. And tanners know a happy cow provides a better hide.

This should inevitably lead to stronger integration between farming and material supply chains with higher prices on offer based on provenance and husbandry, as well “whole animal” economics. Something that fits well in both emerging markets like Africa as well as with more mature ones. It should also lead to higher value leather and less of the commodity type, which itself should trigger more creativity in both the tannery and the design studios.

This itself supports leather’s positioning as a long-life, low-waste material linked to food systems. One that is both traceable and regionally anchored. Undifferentiated leathers will struggle even more against synthetics and we should see flexitarianism in diet demonstrating a cultural shift from abundance and waste to stewardship. A transition from disposability towards material awareness and constraint.

Leather will become seen less as a byproduct of surplus, but as a central, responsible output of a more constrained and valued livestock system on which meat is more valued and livestock more contextualised. Leather becomes more meaningful as a material expression of the system.

mike@internationalleathermaker.com

You can find Dr Mike Redwood across social media at @michaelredwood.

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