The archive · Product Ideas · Product decision · 2021–2022
Dole and Ananas Anam turn waste pineapple leaves into Piñatex vegan leather
Pineapple leaves once rotted into methane; Dole now supplies them to Ananas Anam, which makes Piñatex, a vegan leather alternative.
Dole · Ananas Anam
What it had to solve
More than 2.5 million tonnes of pineapple are grown in the Philippines every year, and for every tonne harvested about three tonnes of leaves are left behind. Left to rot, the leaves can create methane emissions over twenty times more harmful than CO2, and Dole, one of the world's largest pineapple producers, wanted to make a change.
How it works
Every year more than 2.5 million tonnes of pineapple are grown in the Philippines. While the fruit is packaged to feed people around the world, the leaves are left behind: for every tonne of pineapples harvested, roughly three tonnes of leaves go to waste, and when left to rot they can create methane emissions more than twenty times as harmful as CO2.
Dole, one of the largest pineapple producers in the world, answered the problem by partnering with Ananas Anam, the company behind Piñatex. The leaves are no longer discarded: their fibre becomes Piñatex, a vegan, cruelty-free and sustainable leather alternative, without disrupting the pineapple farming that already happens.
The idea turns a cost centre into a product line for another industry. D&AD's jury described it as circular business innovation in which an established food company collaborates with another company to create a new value stream in a completely different sector, while cutting the climate impact of both rotting waste and leather production.
The work entered D&AD's 2022 awards archive as an example of a by-product becoming a material: the change is not in what consumers do, but in where the agricultural waste flows.
Why it lands
- The volume is huge and already paid for: several tonnes of leaves sit behind every tonne of harvested pineapple, and rotting them makes methane far more harmful than CO2.
- The fix changes the flow, not behaviour: pineapple farming and Dole's business stay exactly the same while the leaves gain a destination.
- A leather alternative made from a genuine agricultural by-product answers the waste problem and the animal-materials problem at once, which is why the jury read it as circular business innovation.
- Partnering with Ananas Anam let a food company reach a completely different sector instead of building material expertise it did not have.
What it did
Pineapple leaves stopped being a disposal problem and became a material with a market. D&AD's jury called it a great example of sustainable and circular business innovation — reusing agricultural waste, lowering demand for animal-based goods, and setting standards for other industrial sectors — and the work entered the D&AD 2022 awards archive.
What you can take
One industry's waste can be another industry's raw material: instead of paying to dispose of a by-product, find the partner whose process turns it into a product.
Since then
The work entered D&AD's 2022 awards archive, where the jury held it up as a great example of sustainable and circular business innovation that lowers demand for animal products and sets standards for other industrial sectors. The archive records no sales figures; what it preserves is the structural move: a food giant feeding a by-product it once discarded into another company's product line.
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