Greg’s Dutch Climate Startups: Lab-Grown Beef & Lab-Grown Leather
18 February, 2026
In January I spoke at the HollandBio event, and I was inspired by this new Dutch startup called Qorium that makes lab-grown leather. Why is this such a potential game changer? Fighting Deforestation.
The CEO Michael Newton explained how leather is a multi-billion dollar industry, but the process of separating the cow hide from the cow is one of the grossest things on earth. “Making leather is polluting, wasteful and controversial.” And you can try fake leather, but it’s mostly plastic-based.
The audio technician backstage turned to me and said “It’s true! I work with leather in my other job, and pleather sucks.”
The CEO: “as wasteful as the process is, leather is – by volume – a very valuable part of a cow.” And the audio guy said, “THAT’s why – even though people eat less red meat – the price of leather drives up the demand.”
So I looked it up: A cow’s hide is only worth 5% of a slaughtered steer’s value. Although – profit margins in the beef cattle industry hover around 5%. Sounds to me like potential for DISRUPTION!
Less leather, less cattle expansion, less deforestation.
MAKING REAL LEATHER WITHOUT THE COW?
Yes. Step 1 does involve biopsy cells from a donor cow. Then Step 2 is when they replicate the cells in the lab – to do what they do best – make collagen. And in Step 3 they stimulate the collagen cells to grow as they normally would inside the cow – because SCIENCE.
So if you really want to stop deforestation to grow cattle – try Lab-grown Leather. WATCH:
Next: Beef without the cow: MosaMeat.
A few years ago, I spoke for a Dutch startup making lab-grown beef. Or as they like to call it: “cultured” beef.
Because I guess “lab grown” makes you think of Frankenstein, but cultured makes you think of Young Frankenstein, in a tuxedo.
They biopsy “a sesame seed sized sample of cells,” and they let them grow in the lab just like they would grow in nature. Apparently, one sample from one cow can grow enough protein cells too make 80,000 burgers.
Stay tuned next time for Dutch startups in lab-grown fish, lab-grown pork, and lab-grown fruit.
…But I don’t know when the next time will be, because two of those companies went bankrupt, and the third one doesn’t exist just yet.
Lab-grown Leather:
https://www.qorium.com/
Lab-Grown “Cultured” Beef:
mosameat.com/
For more of Greg’s Climate Good News:
https://gregshapiro.nl/blog/shapiros-orange-going-green/