OUR SUSTAINABLE TANNERY
Kero Tannery in Sattajärvi, Pajala Municipality is the world's northernmost large-scale tannery specialising in reindeer skin.
A lot has happened since Yrjö started the tannery at his homestead in Sattajärvi. The tannery is in new premises and the processing has been made more efficient. From leather tanning being fairly widespread in both Sweden and Europe as a whole, it has over the years become more and more scarce. One of the main reasons is that environmental legislation has become stricter. This can sound good in itself, but instead of turning to environment friendly tanning, many of the plants have been moved to Asia, where the requirements are less strict and labour is cheaper. In other words, the problems have simply been moved on.
VEGETABLE TANNING
Today, four tanneries remain in Sweden, which are continually monitored for compliance with the strict requirements. To buy Swedish tanned leather gives the security of a guarantee that the skin has been processed in a safe way. Kero uses the most environment-friendly tanning method – natural tanning. This means the skin is treated with materials from the plant kingdom and is therefore never a danger to nature, to those who work with the skin, or to those who wear it. Of the four tanneries, Kero is the only one that tans reindeer skin. Since the reindeer migrate between Sweden, Norway and Finland, this means that the entire chain from raw material to finished product is located in Scandinavia. It is a unique strength that customers value.
The old farmyard tannery
Preparations at the old farmyard tannery (and bark tannery) involved stripping bark from spruce and willows in the surrounding forests.
The only machine was a chipper which cut the bark in small pieces. It took about six months to bark-tan a cowhide into finished leather. It was a skilled craft from start to finish.
”We started on a small scale”, Yrjö Kero recounted. ”Received skins for so-called bespoke tanning from people who came needing help to process their reindeer and cattle hides. Eventually we started to also buy skins ourselves and tan them for sale”. The leather which was tanned in the little village tannery at the homestead was sent to among others village shoemakers who in accordance with the tradition of the day turned it into peaked footwear for day-to-day use by the local people.
The first employee was Karl Wälivaara, Yrjö’s brother-in-law. Karl was recruited to the tannery in 1933 and then became an important factor in the company's success.
