The wallet in George Engelmayr’s hand looks unremarkable: tan, textured, a little stiff at the edges. The story behind it is anything but. It was grown in a North Carolina lab from the skin cells of a cow named Angel, who is very much alive, grazing at an animal sanctuary in upstate New York.
Engelmayr, a biomedical engineer who founded Cultivated Biomaterials in the Raleigh area, is already selling jewelry inlaid with what he calls “cultivated leather,” and he’s prototyped small goods like wallets. With his Kickstarter as a springboard, he says the company’s next targets are watch bands and, eventually, handbags as the material’s strength and flexibility improve.
Other WRAL Top Stories
“This is the first time in history that a cow has lived to see leather grown from her own cells,” Engelmayr said, holding a sheet of tissue that had just finished the first step of tanning. “Angel is still alive and doing amazing.”
Angel is a rescued Black Angus at Sweet Farm, a nonprofit sanctuary. In January, Engelmayr visited with a pouch made from Angel’s cells and held it up for the bovine to inspect, a moment the company uses to show that no animal was killed to make the material. Sweet Farm’s founders have publicly cheered the experiment, framing it as a glimpse of a slaughter-free future for luxury goods.
A biological “gemstone,” not a plastic stand-in
Inside a small Raleigh workspace, Engelmayr grows Angel’s cells on airy plant-based mats called scaffolds, made from fibers like kapok, milkweed, and dandelion fluff. The cells secrete collagen, the protein that gives animal hides their strength. After several weeks, the tissue is vegetable-tanned using powders derived from tree barks such as mimosa and sumac, avoiding the chromium salts widely used in conventional tanning.
The finished slivers are set into sterling-silver bezels and sealed beneath a glass cabochon. The effect is closer to a specimen than a swatch, a “biological gemstone,” Engelmayr likes to say.
He’s not the first to chase lab-grown or “next-gen” leather. Startups have experimented with mycelium (mushroom roots), bacterial cellulose, and collagen produced in tanks by engineered microbes. A few have shown couture-ready prototypes, but durability and cost have been the sticking points. Engelmayr’s claim to novelty is narrower: he says he is the first to sell a cultivated leather product grown from the cells of a living, sanctuary cow and to offer it directly to consumers.
RELATED: Best industries in North Carolina for those looking for a career change
Promise — and caveats — on climate
Leather’s environmental ledger is complicated. Hides are a byproduct of meat and dairy, but life-cycle studies consistently tie leather to high climate and water impacts because it’s linked to livestock emissions and resource use, and because many tanneries still rely on toxic chemicals.
Engelmayr cites analyses suggesting cultivated leather could use up to 80% less water and generate 90% fewer emissions, while acknowledging that his own operation hasn’t yet undergone an independent life-cycle assessment. “Water is used in our process,” he said, “but we can recycle it. That’s one of the key distinctions.”
Independent experts say that while those figures are plausible, the gains will depend on the source of the nutrients that feed the cells and the energy powering the bioreactors. For now, the experiment remains small—more proof of concept than climate panacea—but it points toward a less destructive way to meet global demand for leather, which industry analysts value at more than $400 billion a year.
What’s next — and what’s still fragile
The near-term plan is to move from wallets and jewelry into watch straps and small handbags, a deliberate progression that matches current sheet sizes and durability while the lab refines finishing chemistry.
Whether cultivated leather can ever rival the price and performance of hides coming out of global tanneries is an open question. Alternative-leather pioneers have learned hard lessons about scaling and strength; one much-publicized mycelium collaboration fizzled when the material failed to meet luxury standards. Investors, burned by setbacks in the cell-cultured meat sector, are cautious. Still, high-end fashion has always made room for scarce materials with a story. This one has both.
For North Carolina, the experiment is a reminder that the state’s biotech brain trust isn’t limited to medicine or agriculture. Engelmayr cut his teeth in tissue engineering, growing heart valves and cardiac muscle, before detouring into cellular agriculture in California. The lab techniques are transferable. So is the sales pitch.
“Think pearl,” he said, holding up a pendant where the leather tile glowed faintly beneath glass. “Only this time, the animal keeps living.”