Shares in BSF Enterprise PLC (LSE:BSFA) jumped 43% to 0.86p on Tuesday after the tissue-engineering company announced its subsidiary Lab-Grown Leather has successfully tanned scaffold-free cultivated skin in A4-sized sheets, a milestone the company describes as critical to commercialising the material at scale.
The process uses only plant-derived tanning agents, avoiding chromium, a toxic heavy metal still used in roughly 90% of global leather production and linked to hazardous wastewater contamination.
Independent professional tanners have confirmed the finished material is comparable to traditional leather.
Because the cultivated skin arrives at the tanning stage without hair or fat, it bypasses several chemical-intensive preparatory steps required for conventional hides.
The company says this reduces both costs and environmental impact, while the scaffold-free growing process eliminates the roughly 30% of material typically lost to trimming.
Samples of the A4 sheets are to be shared with a leading global fashion house for evaluation and prototype development under an existing agreement.
BSF also confirmed an April 2 showcase in Amsterdam where it will unveil the world's first consumer product made from T-Rex Leather, engineered using fossilised Tyrannosaurus Rex collagen as a genetic blueprint, developed in partnership with VML and The Organoid Company.