Desserto ®update SCIENCE FOR SALE BEHIND THE LEATHER CURTAIN The DESSERTO® Team responds to the leather lobby in a statement provided to WATERTODAY By Suzanne Forcese “In a time when fashion and automotive giants are under pressure to reduce their environmental footprint, the promise of plant-based alternatives to leather has never felt more urgent—or more under fire. At the center of a mounting backlash against these innovations stands Germany’s FILK Institute, a materials research center whose recent public statements and studies raise red flags not just about scientific neutrality, but about a deeper conflict of interest rooted in the leather industry itself.” -- The Desserto Team

A Study with Strings Attached

In 2021, FILK published a study titled “Comparison of the Technical Performance of Leather and Trendy Alternatives,” testing nine well-known plant-based and synthetic materials against traditional leather. On paper, the report appears rigorous. But a closer look reveals a troubling fact: the study seems to be commissioned by COTANCE, the leather industry’s lobby in the European Union.

The report unsurprisingly concludes that “none of the tested substitutes could truly be called an alternative to leather.” But without disclosure of sample provenance, product generation stage, or independent verification from material creators, these findings lose scientific weight and lean into the territory of industry-funded advocacy.

Technical Metrics ≠ Sustainability

FILK’s analysis focuses narrowly on conventional material strength tests—tear resistance, water vapor absorption, flex durability—where leather, with centuries of refinement behind it, predictably outperforms its younger challengers.

But this is not the metric that climate-conscious consumers, investors, or designers are watching. Absent from the study are Life Cycle Assessments, environmental impact metrics, carbon accounting, or water and chemical usage. And herein lies the study’s fatal flaw: you cannot claim scientific rigor in 2025 while ignoring sustainability.

Leather may win in tensile strength—but at what environmental cost?

“They Bring Nothing At All”: The Dangerous Oversimplification

Perhaps the most quoted line from FILK co-general manager Dr. Michael Meyer comes from an August 2023 interview with German broadcaster ZDF. Dismissing the wave of plant-based materials, he claimed:

“Technically, these products are plastic with some filler based on extracts or pulp from plants such as apple or cactus. They bring nothing at all.”

This statement is not only reductive, but it is provably false.

Take Desserto, a cactus-based material made by Adriano Di Marti in Mexico. Contrary to Meyer’s characterization, Desserto is not a PU matrix sprinkled with plant filler. It is a bioengineered material composed of proteins, cellulose, and hemicellulose derived from cactus. In fact, the fibers are intentionally removed during processing to allow the plant-based molecules to bind organically, resulting in a structure that is up to 90% bio-based. This is not greenwashing, it’s green innovation at the molecular level.

Other plant-based materials like bio-based polymers and mycelium-based, also defy the “plastic with filler” narrative. These technologies aren’t static—they are iterative and evolving and often outperform early prototypes within months.

Dr. Meyer’s sweeping dismissal ignores the cutting edge of biomaterials science and does a disservice to serious research in the sector.

A New Twist: FILK’s Sudden Interest in Controlling the Narrative?

In a curious development, the FILK Institute has now positioned itself as a leader in the Material platform—an EU-funded research initiative ostensibly dedicated to building a database and transparency tool for next-gen materials, including bio-based leather alternatives.

According to FILK’s website, the project aims to create “a comprehensive information and decision-making platform for stakeholders in the leather and textile industry,” and will involve the testing of alternative materials—including those previously dismissed by FILK itself.

This move raises critical ethical questions:

Can an institute that has publicly disparaged plant-based innovations now position itself as a neutral gatekeeper of their future?

Is this a genuine pivot toward inclusion, or a strategy to control and sanitize the narrative under the guise of transparency?

The optics are troubling. The same organization that helped cast doubt on emerging materials now seeks to define the standards by which they are judged.

Cherry-Picked Data, Omitted Transparency

The original FILK report is silent on key variables:

• How were samples sourced?
• Were they production-grade or early-stage?
• Were material developers consulted or given opportunities to validate samples?

This lack of transparency is problematic, especially when researchers are testing competing materials funded by an industry with a vested interest in discrediting them.

The Real Leather Story Isn’t Being Told

The FILK studies also exhibit a conspicuous blind spot: the ecological and ethical cost of leather production itself. Chrome tanning, water-intensive livestock farming, methane emissions, deforestation for grazing - none of these are factored into FILK’s framing of “performance.” And yet they are the very reasons designers and brands are seeking plant-based alternatives in the first place.

To call leather “natural” while omitting its chemical processing stages is intellectually dishonest. To tout leather’s breathability without accounting for chromium VI, a known carcinogen often found in improperly treated hides, is ethically negligent.

Plant-Based Innovation: Not Perfect—But Progressing

Of course, the plant-based materials landscape is not without its own challenges. Some products still rely on polyurethane or synthetic binders to achieve flexibility or durability. Others have yet to scale or match leather’s longevity under extreme conditions. But these are engineering problems, not ethical failures. The point is not that plant-based materials are perfect, it’s that they are improving fast, and deserve unbiased, contextualized analysis, not dismissal from those tied to traditional interests.

Conclusion: Science, or Strategy?

What FILK presents is not peer-reviewed environmental science. It is a defensive campaign to protect incumbent material from disruptive competition. Rather than embracing transparency and collaboration with innovators, the leather industry—via COTANCE and FILK—has adopted a strategy of sowing doubt and downplaying progress.

That strategy may stall the narrative, but it won’t stop the tide. Material innovation, backed by rigorous sustainability science and driven by consumer demand, is advancing regardless of traditional gatekeepers.

And if FILK wants to lead the conversation on next-gen materials, it must first reckon with the narrative it helped build—and the innovation it tried to bury.

At the heart of product design is a simple yet powerful belief: designers are the bridge between limitless creativity and the practical realities of our world, where consciousness is the epicenter of each innovation.

Desserto Team.

Related: WT Article: Mexican Start-up Adriano Di Marti Disrupts The Leather Industry

Researchgate: Comparison of the Technical Performance of Leather, Artificial Leather, and Trendy Alternatives