Based in Alsace, the Haas tanneries have been producing exceptional leathers for their customers, including some of France's leading luxury brands, for almost 200 years.
Suppliers to Adapta since day one, we decided to come and meet them to find out a little more about the world of tanning.
Philippe Keller and Sébastien Croidieu are respectively Operations Director and Sales Director for Haas tanneries. They both have decades of experience in the tanning industry in France and Europe. They talk to us about their tannery, their business... and leather, of course!
What drew you to the tanning industry and what do you particularly like about it?
We were lucky enough to meet people who were mentors, who shared their passion for leather with us.
What attracted us was this contact with the material and its evolution. Compared to other materials, leather gives off something special that we can't explain. It has an extremely rich visual quality and a sensitivity to touch. It's a living material, there are no two skins alike.
Whatever our job, it's always the material that guides us in our work and leads us towards production and development. Whether it's with customers (who very rarely buy from catalogues, but rather place made-to-measure orders) or with our R&D teams.
What are the defining characteristics of Haas tanneries?
While some tanneries work with calves and cattle, and small hides are handled by tanneries, Haas tanneries only work with calves. We mainly use a double tanning process, chrome and vegetable, as described in our Novonappa® product.
The tannery takes charge of the entire process (approximately 6 weeks), from the purchase of the hides from the abattoirs to the finished leather. Finally, quality control is extremely important throughout this cycle, so that we can produce the high quality leathers that Haas tanneries have been producing for so many years.
‘It's always the material that drives our work’.
Can you tell us a bit more about the process of transforming a hide into leather?
Of course I can! It's an extremely complicated and lengthy process. It starts with the river cycle, which removes the hair from the hide and cleans it.
Next comes the tanning process, which transforms the hide into leather, making it rot-proof, and the dyeing process, which gives the leather its colour.
This is followed by wet currying, which removes the moisture from the hide. The hide is softened during the dry finishing process, which gives it its final characteristics. At this stage, the leather is semi-finished.
Finally, the aim of all the finishing operations is to give a leather a visual appearance by adding all the technical characteristics desired by the customer in his specifications (resistance to water, light, rubbing, etc.).
You spoke earlier about the attention paid to quality. Can you tell us more about that?
The hides are checked at every stage of the production process, and more specifically at four stages: raw hides, tanned hides, semi-finished and finished hides before being sent to our customers.
For example, after tanning, the first quality control enables us to orientate the skins (according to scratches, punctures, etc.) towards the different articles we manufacture.
The final check takes place before shipment to ensure that the leather meets the customer's complete specifications.
At adapta_, we work with dead stocks of unused leather. Can you explain what this involves?
In terms of quality, it's exactly the same as that used by our customers. In our production cycle, we regularly have surpluses, or leathers that don't meet customer expectations at a given time for various reasons (colour, shine, thickness, etc.). These leathers are made available to adapta_ and then sold to other designers who use smaller quantities. It's a virtuous upcycling circuit that gives everyone access to our leathers.
Can you tell us about the two types of tanning: vegetable and chrome?
In reality, there are 3 types of tanning, because in addition to the two you mentioned, there are also synthetic tannages.
Historically, because of the large presence of chestnut trees in Alsace, Haas tanneries used vegetable extracts for tanning. Then, at the beginning of the 20th century, chrome tanning overtook vegetable tanning, which was more complex to implement. However, new molecules currently being researched will enable us to reduce or eliminate the use of chromium in the years to come.
‘Tanning is an industry that has evolved a considerable amount in recent years and will certainly evolve even more rapidly in the years to come.’
Can you tell us something about the current debate on the environmental impact of these two kinds of tanning?
There are still a lot of unknowns on these subjects and many studies are underway. One of them involves analysing the life cycle of tanning, and we are awaiting the results.
There's also a lot of talk about water pollution from chrome tanning. Can you tell us about your infrastructure and facilities set up in-house to comply with all the French and European standards?
What we think is important is that we have our own physico-chemical treatment plant, which enables us to recover 99.9% of the chromium used in our production. This plant also enables us to treat part of the BOD and all the suspended solids.
After treatment in our plant, the water is sent to the municipal plant for overall treatment in the same way as household wastewater.
Our challenge is to reduce the use of water, and to reduce or eliminate the use of chromium and solvents. Our finishing processes have been in an aqueous environment for several years now.
The tanning industry (like other industries) does use chemicals. So we have to be particularly careful. Our industry is monitored by government offices (the DREAL), where the specifications to be met in terms of waste are extremely precise and rigorous. Our effluents are checked every day.
Tanning is an industry that has evolved a great deal in recent years, and will certainly evolve even more rapidly in the years to come.
Let's talk about products. It's often said that leather that has been tanned for shoes can be used for leather goods, but the opposite is impossible, isn't ?
Generally speaking, yes, but there are many counter-examples. For example, Novonappa ® is a leather with a very natural finish (which is part of what makes it so famous). But this means that it is sensitive to light and fragile to scratches, and despite this, it is used for leather goods.
When it comes to footwear, it all depends on what you want to do with it: a little ballerina with leather that stays the same? A shoe with a more sporty leather that will wax and patina? Depending on this, you'll need a leather that's suitable for the purpose (elasticity, for example). So it's difficult to give a yes or no answer, and that's why advice is so important.
I wanted to come back to your collaborations with your customers... We've talked about the big luxury houses, but I often see small players who are blissfully impressed by your leathers but who have the impression that you don't want to work with them. Is this linked to the production method, which requires minimum quantities?
Indeed, this is not a commercial constraint, but an industrial one, given our quality requirements. We have equipment, particularly tanning and dyeing equipment (fulling machines) for which we need to have sufficient mass effect to achieve the required quality. That's why it's so complicated to manufacture very small volumes: you'd need different equipment at different costs. We'd be delighted to work with small designers, but unfortunately we can't meet their direct demand.
‘Adapta has an approach that makes sense: reusing materials that are of high quality and giving them a second life’.
You've been working with adapta_ for 2 years now, and your leathers are among the top 10% in France. Can you tell us why you decided to work with us?
We know that our industrial constraints can be a problem in terms of access to our leathers for young designers. What's interesting about your approach is that, through you, we can provide access. It's an approach that really interested us because we thought it made a lot of sense: reusing high-quality materials and giving them a second life. It's extremely interesting because it gives a new dimension to unused leather and opens up a market that we didn't have access to before.
What are your plans and how do you see the future for Haas tanneries, even in these uncertain times?
We are indeed going through a period of uncertainty and it's very difficult to plan for the short and medium term. We have to be responsive, flexible and creative, and offer designers more and more new products. Our research and development teams are constantly working on new projects.
Would you use one word to describe your collaboration with adapta_?
Upcycling! Crédit photos : adapta_
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