Take a seat…

Jonathan Welch visits Muirhead Leather to learn how it produces its low-impact leather products, which are to be found across the transport industry

If the question were ‘name a quality material produced in the rolling hills of the Scottish Lowlands,’ your first guess might be tartan. Anyone who was paying close attention at events such as Euro Bus Expo or the recent ALBUM conference might come up with the name of a company which is growing its presence in the transport sector, Muirhead Leather.

With extensive experience in other sectors such as aircraft seating, as well as premium car marques through its sister companies, the Scottish Leather Group company has invested heavily in improving its production processes to manufacture what it says is the lowest carbon leather on the market, as well as its ActiveHygiene antibacterial option.

To find out more about the company, the product and the process behind creating it, I took a trip to Muirhead’s home at the Scottish Leather Group works located in Bridge of Weir in Renfrewshire, west of Glasgow. The facility undertakes the entire process of leather production, something which Muirhead proudly says is unique in the UK, its end-to-end vertical integration from source to finished products offering many benefits to end users. The raw material arrives directly from abattoirs where it is a by-product of food production, and the finished high performance leather is shipped out to customers worldwide. It’s rare for CBW to see a production process from so far back down the line, which made the visit all the more interesting.