Vegea

Based in Milan, Italy, Vegea develops plant-based alternatives to synthetic oil-derivative materials for use in fashion, furniture, packaging, automotive & transportation. The company’s patented (2016) product ‘Vegea’—a simulated leather made from waste byproducts of winemaking such as grape skin, stalk and seed fibres—was first launched in Milan in October 2017. The company estimates that the 7 billion kilos (7.7 million tons) of grape marc (winemaking residue) leftover from 26 billion liters (6.8 billion gallons) of wine produced annually could produce 3 billion square meters (32 billion square feet) of the wine leather.

In January 2020, Swedish retailer H&M partnered with Vegea to use the vegan leather in its eco-friendly “Conscious Collection” including handbags and shoes. In June 2020, the Dutch footwear manufacturer Mercer Amsterdam launched a sneaker, named “W3RD Wine Pack”, made using Vegea. Vegea has also been used in footwear produced by brands such as Redemption and Le Coq Sportif; and in car seats by automobile manufacturer Bentley.

In May 2021, Vegea raised over USD 200,000 in a Kickstarter campaign to create a grape leather bag (named "grappaSac") designed under the Australian fashion brand “iFarmaissance.”)