Natural Fiber Welding employees wearing Mirum belts. The belts were produced to show one potential use for Natural Fiber Welding’s plant-based leathers. Photography by Evan Jenkins

Can This Tiny Midwestern Startup Become the Beyond Meat of Leather?

Fashion designers, environmentalists, and car companies are desperate for someone to invent animal-free leather. This Peoria, Illinois upstart thinks it can.

Published in

Marker

12 min readNov 11, 2019

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In September, Luke Haverhals, a 41-year-old former chemistry professor from Peoria…

Zara Stone

Written by Zara Stone

Writer for

Marker

Tech+Culture f/lance journo. www.zarastone.net Bylines: OneZero, Marker, Atlantic, Forbes, etc. Author: The Future of Science Is Female https://bit.ly/stm202

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