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No fruit has a greater variety of varieties and no other fruit is better suited as an alternative to leather. This is what the young Zurich entrepreneurs Lucas and Claudius Knecht thought.
It all started in northern Italy when the brothers were on vacation with the family. Looking for a new rucksack, the people of Zurich went to various leather goods stores and were irritated by the smell typical of leather. This made her want to learn more about leather and research how the material is made. They discovered that leather production is anything but sustainable and began to look for alternatives.
Innovative material “ApplePeel”
The 26-year-old and his two-year-old brother came across the apple at some point. More precisely, the innovative material called “ApplePeel”. Since 2020, the Star-Up founders have been making accessories from leftover apples from South Tyrol under the name “Sohotree”. In apple juice production, there are a lot of leftovers that cannot be used any further. Part of it is dried and ground into a powder. This is then mixed with recycled plastic and organic cotton. The effective apple content of the material is a third at the end. They have the “ApplePeel” produced in an Italian family business. The accessories are sewn in small factories in Italy.
In a building for start-up companies, Lucas and Claudius Knecht develop and design their products with the aim of being able to offer everything that can also be bought from leather. At 32 to 37 francs, the price per meter for apple leather is higher than for real leather. The profit for the young entrepreneur is correspondingly small. But they don’t want to reveal how high it is.
Where ideas grow
The siblings can relax from the world of work on the golf course. Both are former professional golfers with a handicap of 0. Golfing and sustainable management are not opposites for them. Just as they try to increase sustainability in the leather industry, the same phenomenon is also observed in golf. There are always more self-sufficient golf courses that collect rainwater and use solar energy. But when they’re on the pitch, having fun comes first. Even so, sometimes the time is used to brood over new ideas.