Fashion brands struggle to keep up with growing consumer demand for sustainability. Consumers are more critical about what they wear. They want perfect fitted clothes made from natural materials using clean transparent methods and without waste. It is a difficult task for brands that need to deal with a complex, 200-year-old supply chain.
The fashion industry is one of the world’s most polluting industries estimated to emit 1.7 M tonnes CO2, consume 79 B m3 water, and approximately 92 M tonnes textile waste annually. The largest environmental impact stem from production of raw materials & textile processing (dyeing and treatment). The industry is also focusing on recycling and circular solutions like reducing water use, improve dying processes and developing sustainable materials. Very focused, quick fixes that only scratch the surface of the problems posed by this complex supply chain. It is not enough: a $2 Trillion industry, which is expected to grow by 60% by 2030, needs long-term solutions that tackle the problem at its roots. We need a systemic change to really transform the industry!
NEFFA is the first sustainable automated manufacturing method to create custom-fit textile products from biomaterials, starting with MYCOTEX. First, we grow mycelium, the root structure of mushrooms. We use liquid fermentation and only work with food grade ingredients. Then the mycelium is filtered, mixed with ingredients and pigments and applied onto the moulds. After drying and finishing the product is ready to be worn. It is our goal to become the new standard for manufacturing, next to cutting & sewing.
Our main challenge is convincing male dominant companies. This can be on investor level, but also when setting up projects with brands or manufactures. Our company has 2 female founders. When speaking with brands, there are a lot of females, so there are no issues. However when speaking to manufacturers, the management is mainly dominated by males. We have not gotten a manufacturing brand on board because of this. What we do now to overcome these issues is to look for brands, manufacturers and investors who have females in the team. Last year we got funded by 2 investors who had females in the team and also we have a lot of interest from companies with females on the team, both confirming this assumption.
Next year we want to launch the first luxury bags. Through economies of scale, raising yield per litre and having multiple robot set-ups, our goal is to go from luxury to fast fashion within 6 years. Therefore we need to have a competitive material price. The kilo price of MYCOTEX slurry (needed to make 1 m2 of MYCOTEX) right now is very high. Through economies of scale and raising yield per batch, we expect to drop in prices in the coming years when going to 15 and 150 m3, producing multiple batches per year. In order to achieve competitive prices we need to drop the material price also after the economies of scale. That is why we need to focus on sequential batch testing.
We successfully work with small 3D printed moulds. We can print them almost without visible printing lines but this is taking quite a long time. To create larger moulds that do not contain visible seams or the printing lines is more complicated. In order to make them affordable, we need to print with larger nozzles, giving thicker lines in the object that our clients do not want. We need to test different options to find the best suitable and affordable option for industrial production.
To bring a new and shorter supply chain to the market is the focus of NEFFA. This proposal is focussed on increasing our business opportunity from a business and technological point of view.
