Polybion Tackles Food Waste and Avoids Plastics with Biomaterial Celium

As you get ready to sell to the world, what is your manufacturing capacity like? Is the one in Central Mexico your only manufacturing facility?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Currently yes, which is an ideal location in terms of qualified labour and manufacturing cost, logistics and free-trade-agreements. This can be assessed by looking at the automotive industry, where Mexico has one of the biggest automotive manufacturing hubs in the world.

What would be the lead time, say should I order for 1000 metres of Celium? How important would it be for you to maintain stocks? Or, can you produce on demand (more or less)?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Around 2.5 months lead-time and we don’t sell rolls, but units or individual sheets of 1.5 sq m. We have stock and we also produce on demand (grown-to-order).

The enthusiasm with which the Celium global launch was received in industry was there to see. But at your end, what has been the feedback like? What does your order book read like? For how many months / years are you already booked and will you be manufacturing at full capacity?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Overwhelming reaction and interest from industry (top global brands) and individuals. We are fully booked for the remaining of the year. Designers from different parts of the world and from top-notch brands have really identified Celium’s aesthetics as a unique feature that makes this fabric very exciting to work with.

The raw material that Celium uses is fruit waste. How does your supply chain work? Where are you sourcing it from and is there enough to meet your requirements? What all can you source, and importantly–from where all can you source? What do farmers or producers of the fruit waste stand to gain?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: We get it from food-processing industrial partners who throw away this as waste or scrap. The availability of this fruit waste just in Mexico is enough to supply 54% of the world’s leather demand; so, there’s plenty to go around and even supply other industries that use cellulose-based materials. We are barely scratching the surface of the food-waste supply chain, and hope to participate more actively in the future directly with producers—meaning small farm owners who produce the fruit and sell it to the food-processing facilities. They would benefit from the extra income from their scrap, and the planet would benefit from removed waste that turns into methane, and also less GHGs.

Celium is being projected as a biobased “leather” alternative. Why brand Celium as an alternative to leather? Can Celium stand on its own feet as yet another biomaterial that perhaps mimics leather in terms of touch, feel and other qualities?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: No, Celium is a new class of material—premium cultivated cellulose. And thus, it doesn’t intend to compete with leather, which is a great material that humans have used for millennia.

We intend to offer a new category of biological textile materials, cultivated using a circular, local and vertically integrated approach. So, not only the material Celium is innovative, but the process is disruptive for the manufacturing status quo too. We believe this bio-manufacturing approach will serve as a proof-of-concept that we as humans can go from extractive practices to creative ones, growing our materials, our food, medicine, and the inputs to the economy, by harnessing the powerhouse of biology.

What is Polybion doing to raise awareness about Celium as a biomaterial both for end-consumers as well as brands/retailers? What is the B2C focus as an ingredient brand?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: We talk to the consumer constantly through our collaborations, clients and social media channels. Also, our co-marketing agreements are intended to teach the consumer about this new class of materials.

Apart from the touch-and-feel and performance elements, a material is also about durability. How durable would a Celium product be? What are the kind of tests that you have carried out?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Right now it is as durable as plastic leather alternatives (the so-called vegan leathers). Still, there is a lot to improve in order to compete in performance with collagen-based animal leather, and with enough hope, one day surpass animal skins in performance. We do standard performance tests in our quality lab that are compliant with international norms, such as abrasion durability, tear strength, tensile strength, flexing durability and most important field wear tests. We do these validations with every produced batch.

Related question: the way most people see it, durability is about standing the test of time. Controlled lab tests are one thing, but the wear and tear brought about by time is quite another. Comments, please.
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Yes, we have learned through trial and error that lab tests under controlled environment are not as reliable when assessing real-life use scenarios. The best test is the wear test, performed on the field, and on different latitudes (places) and altitudes (distance to sea level) of our planet—this is the most challenging test to surpass. Actually, we are going through a couple of parallel wear tests with top global brands even as we answer these questions.

Then, there’s the question of LCA itself, especially in the backdrop of heated debates around the subject. What are the input resources like: water, energy? What happens to a Celium product when it reaches end of life at an end-consumer’s wardrobe?
Alexis Gómez-Ortigoza and Axel Gómez -Ortigoza: Our process input is: fruit waste + water + solar PV energy = Celium. The LCA performed by Quantis proves that our approach to biomaterials is one of the most if not the most sustainable possible today. In terms of end of life, our Celium membrane is 100% home compostable (in the end it’s coloured cellulose). Then, depending on the product (bag, shoe, wallet) and the confection process where they sometimes add backing materials or metallic elements, the final product either can be or may not be 100% compostable.