Heller Leder at a glance
Founded in 1920, Heller Leder is a large tannery based in Hehlen (Germany). The company employs around 300 people and reports a turnover exceeding EUR 50 million in 2024.¹ Its leather is used in automotive, home furnishings, leather goods and clothing, serving premium brands such as Porsche.
The company operates as a full-service tannery, meaning that all stages, from the untreated raw hide to the finished leather, are carried out at its own site, where production facilities process up to 1,500 hides per day. Its sister company, Helcor-Leder-Tec, specialises in the finishing of leather and other carrier materials, including microfibre materials.
Its entire product portfolio is certified according to the Blue Angel and OEKO-TEX® standards.
Heller-Leder has an established track record in developing environmentally innovative solutions for leather production. Examples include its participation in KeratoFILTAN, a German-funded project under the Industrielle Bioökonomie (Industrial Bioeconomy) programme, aiming to transform keratin recovered from hair residues into bio-based filling and retanning agents; and its participation in the ReeL project, funded under the r+Impuls - Impulse für industrielle Ressourceneffizienz (Impulses for Industrial Resource Efficiency), which focused on converting leather residues and plant biomass into retanning agents.

Expanding business opportunities by leveraging innovative materials and established know-how 
In 2025, Heller Leder began working with INNOVERA™, an innovative material developed by the biomaterials technology company Modern Meadow using plant-based proteins, biopolymers and recycled rubber. More than 80% of the carbon contained in the material comes from bio-based or recycled sources rather than virgin fossil resources. Among the key reasons behind Heller-Leder’s decision to select it were its environmental profile and material characteristics, including the use of recycled raw materials and durability.
Since INNOVERA™ is designed to be integrated into existing tannery processes and can be treated much like conventional leather using Heller-Leder’s tannery equipment, the company can purchase it in a semi-finished form and then re-tan, dye, and finish it through its standard production processes. This compatibility was a key factor in Heller-Leder’s decision to select the material.
Through these processes, Heller-Leder can tailor the material’s colour, softness, surface appearance and technical properties to the requirements of different customers and applications, leveraging its tanning expertise, processing technologies and market knowledge.
By expanding its portfolio to include this material, Heller-Leder can serve a segment of the market seeking solutions free of animal components that combine sustainability features with a look and feel comparable to leather.
Its established commercial network also places the company in a strong position to introduce innovative solutions to the market, building on long-standing relationships with leading brands in end-use markets.

New opportunities for the future arising from collaborations
The Heller-Leder case shows how collaboration with companies developing innovative materials can create opportunities that go beyond simply adding a new product to the portfolio. Since the semi-finished material is currently manufactured in the United States, Heller-Leder and Modern Meadow have established a joint venture to produce it at a new facility near Heller-Leder’s German site, combining Modern Meadow’s material technology with Heller-Leder’s industrial expertise, processing capabilities and knowledge of European markets. Production is expected to begin in late 2026. 

Conclusion
As shown by the Heller-Leder case, cooperation between material innovators and tanneries can support access to emerging market segments and industrial scale-up, leveraging existing industrial assets and specialised leather-processing skills. While the broader uptake of similar initiatives will depend on the pace and scale of market demand for new material solutions, this approach can create new opportunities for diversification.

^{1. Orbis database, Bureau van Dijk / Moody’s Analytics.}