making everyday things
opportunities for Italian tannery machines and related machinery manufacturers are for sales to American-based companies that have factories offshore; meat packers that have diversifi ed to manufacture so-called “wet blue” leather, which is tanned with chromium sulfate; and niche manufacturers, says Giulio Tanduri, who serves on the board of tanning machinery manufacturer Carlessi Srl, Arzignano, Italy and was president of ASSOMAC from 2007-2011.
One of those niche manufacturers is American Tanning & Leather
(Griffi n, GA;
www.amtan.com), which processes alligator and croco- dile hides. Like the luxury carpet maker Scott Group, American Tan- ning’s business has grown substantially in the last fi ve years. Chris Plott, co-owner of American Tanning, says his com-
pany’s output has tripled recently: it’s processed 30,000 skins each year for the last few years. It used to be 10,000 skins a year. “We’re starting earlier, staying later and taking more risks,” says Plott. “For some reason the luxury market is doing well.” One of the risks Plott took recently was investing $300,000 in two new tanning drums and water-dosing equipment from Italprogetti Engineering SpA (
www.italprogetti.it), in San Romano, Italy. Plott was familiar with the company through trade shows, and is impressed by Italprogetti’s polypropyl- ene drums, which are durable and can withstand the caustic chemicals used in the tanning process. One meat packer that diversifi ed into leather tanning is National Beef Packing Company, established in 1992 in Kansas City, MO. National Beef (
www.nationalbeefl
eather.com) went with Carlessi machinery when it started a wet blue hide processing facility in nearby Kansas City, Missouri in 2009. In a $24 million plant upgrade in 2010, it was able to increase its wet blue capacity to 30,000-plus hides a week by
installing 20 Italian-made drums. At its Liberal, Kan-
sas beef processing plant, National Beef installed an Italian back-to-back green fl eshing system to improve the quality of cowhides it sent for tanning. Other wet blue tanneries are in Iowa, Texas and Nebraska,
Tanduri says.
And even though tanneries in the United States may be smaller than in other countries, that doesn’t mean the country has gotten out of the finished hide business altogether. Horween Leathers, in Chicago, has been tanning hides since
1905. The machinery in its building includes tanning drums from Vallero International Srl (Turin, Italy;
www.vallerointernational. com); a vacuum dryer, shavers and a setting machine from Rizzi SpA (Modena, Italy;
www.rizzi.it); a roll coater from Workshops Cartigliano SpA (Cartigliano, Italy;
www.cartigliano.net) and a rotoplating machine from Barnini Mostardini Srl (Pisa, Italy;
www.barnini.it). “We’re constantly looking for the best available,” says Nick
This line is used by Barilla SpA (
www.barillagroup.com) to make pasta in its plant in Mexico.
Horween, company vice president. “That’s basically how we’ve survived in Chicago.” The tanned leather from Horween (
www.horween.com) goes
to make professional footballs, baseballs and other sports- related items, as well as to shoe manufacturers like Wolverine (
www.wolverine.com), Timberland (
www.timberland.com) and Alden of New England (
www.aldenshoe.com), and the Detroit- based luxury watchmaker Shinola (
www.shinola.com). Horween, however, may be the exception rather than the rule. “Most of the American tanneries have moved their factories abroad,” says Tanduri. “So we sell to American compa- nies who have moved their operations to Mexico, Thailand, China and Hungary.”
A few American tanneries have kept their headquarters in the United States, however. One is Eagle Ottawa, of Au- burn Hills, Michigan. Eagle Ottawa (
www.eagleottawa.com) primarily serves the automobile interiors industry, and is equipping a new plant in Leon, Mexico with about two dozen Carlessi machines, says Tanduri. Individual tannery machines can range from about $40,000 to almost $700,000, and the cost to equip a new tannery can range from $3 million to $20 million, Tanduri says. Innovations in the tanning process mean manufactur- ers now favor water-based products instead of noxious solvents and chemicals. And better designs and engineer- ing in tanning machinery have resulted in reductions in energy consumption by up to 40 percent in the last 30 years. In addition, the industry has embraced on-site water treatment plants instead of dumping wastewater into wa- terways, Tanduri says.
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