YPIE Blog – week two, day one – Scottish Leather Group

Now in its fifth year, the Young Professional Industry Experience is our unique three week intensive programme where a group of young people are given the opportunity to visit  20 industry leading companies and understand all areas of the furniture industry, including materials, designing, manufacturing, pricing, marketing, sales, and customer service.

Josh Chadwick, graduate sales trainee at Herman Miller, writes about the group’s visit to Scottish Leather Group.

Today we visited the Scottish Leather Group. We were greeted by James Lang who gave us an overview of the company and all the entities that make up the group and its history. We were then taken on a tour of the NCT leather factory where the cow hide starts its journey to leather.

We then travelled to Andrew Muirhead and Sons where the leather is finished and coloured. Around one million hides a year come into the factory and go through many processes before it becomes leather that can be sold.

The group is constantly looking to reduce its waste products and the amount of landfill it produces. The group produces a low carbon leather thanks to its big investment into a water waste treatment plant that reuses waste products and converts it into energy.

James talked about the company’s education programmes and how every two years they take on 10 students to complete an SVQ in Engineering and Manufacturing. This shows that they invest in the future of the company and the industry.

As well as education, SLG invests in health & safety and the well-being of its staff by employing full time wellbeing practitioners.

James identified that the potential challenges of the leather industry is the gradual increase in vegans and vegetarians as cow hides are a biproduct of meat. As long as people continue to eat meat, leather will continue to be produced. He also explained how the uncertainties of Brexit could have implications on the company and discussed the importance of retaining and making new relationships with UK manufacturers and suppliers.

The experience has helped us appreciate the work that goes into producing leather. It gave us an appreciation on the complexity of the process and a better understanding on why this is a high quality and well sought after product.