Our Engagement

« Generate less waste by optimising sheepskin material and transform what was meant to be thrown away in a range of useful and stylish accessories was my main objective since the beginning. »

Maria Lye, Founder of Toasties

 

At Toasties, we want to make sure what we do doesn’t harm neither animals nore the planet or people we work with.

 

WE LOVE SHEEPSKIN

 

We want to remind here no sheeps have been killed to develop our products. The sheepksins we use come from sheeps who are raised in good conditions for meat production. We take over and use skin that would have been thrown away and converted in waste.

Contrary to synthetic products, sheepskin can be used for many years. At Toasties, we make sure to work with the best partners who bring the best processes of tanning called “dressing”: protecting and preserving sheepskins to make it more durable.

We have constantly pushed the boundaries to find the best techniques of manufacture to develop high-quality products with the best sheepskins we can find on the market, with the less waste possible.

Yet, we know there is still much to do to become entirely sustainable. That’s why we have decided to focus on three points for 2021 and beyond:

 

- TREACABILITY 

90% of our sheepskins come from Murcie region in Spain and are 100% merinos. They are all certified by our expert-partner in sheepskin who works with three suppliers. Each supplier has to prove the origins of each sheepskin we collect and deliver a certificate explaining where and in which conditions exactly the sheep has lived.

10% of our sheepskin materials come from Australia (Dubbo NSW region) and Iceland

From 2021, we have started to use merinos sheepskins from France (30% of the collection), in order to reduce our environmental impact and promote French channels production.

In the future, our objective is to work more and more with French sheepskins. We are currently working on it every day with our partner.

 

- ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT

Our environmental impact can be significantly reduced through several actions we are initiating now with our main partner:

  • Centralising the buying of sheepskins in France & Spain in order to reduce our carbon print.
  • Reducing the amount of waste rejected in nature (air and water) when sheepskins are dyed and treated. This action can be possible thanks to buying investment: new machines, new colour casks (our partner has already invested 350 000€ in new dyeing color casks in order to reduce water use in 2021).
  • Colour treatment: all emissions and water use due to our sheepskins’ colour treatments are daily controlled and regulated by DREAL agency. Developed from Chrome 3 in a colour laboratory by experts, we are also currently exploring some vegetal combinations to develop our dazzling and vibrant colour range.

 

- A COLLABORATION OF TRUST

 Since 2016, Toasties has developed a strong partnership with an independant tannery in France based in Toulouse, expert in sheepskin since 1957. RIAL, run by an old family of tanners, it is the last tannery to treat sheepskin in France.

Together, we share the love and respect for sheepksins, as well as a deep interest for developing new techniques to optimize and elevate this noble material.

In 2021, we have decided to initiate a deeper partnership since RIAL becomes a business partner, and the one and only supplier of Toasties to collect, treat and dye sheepskins before they get crafted in France or Portugal.