Turning trash into cash: tanning fish skin into leather

Just one day before Kenya announced its first coronavirus case on the 12th of March a company that specialises in the processing of quality fish leather, was incorporated in Kenya.  Named Newton Fish Leather, the company is a Kenyan tannery leading in the manufacturing of exotic leather from fish skin. Newton Fish Leather is stationed in Kisumu, in the north-eastern coast of Lake Victoria.  Kisumu’s fishing economy has been firmly established since the very beginning of the twentieth century when the railway from the coastal Kenyan town of Mombasa to the Ugandan capital Kampala, was completed. Running through Kisumu it enabled the transport of fresh catch to Nairobi markets making it the most important inland fishing town in Kenya.  “We use skin from Nile Perch, which largely populates the iconic Lake Victoria, chief reservoir of the Nile River,” says the company’s CEO and co-director, Antonio Raimondi, adding that Nile Perch skin is very malleable which makes its leather of high quality.  Raimondi has partnered with Newton Owino, a fisherman based in Kisumu to generate income by processing discarded fish skin at the shores of the lake.  “Mr. Owino noticed the waste lying around Lake Victoria shores and thought of coming up with a solution to transform the waste into something profitable,” he explains.   Also Read: C-19 Pandemic: The fashion industry’s black swan