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The Ethiopia Industrial Promotion Project (Export Promotion) (Phase 2) aims to increase the export revenue of leather materials, and as one of the activities to achieve this goal, the project is providing technical support to leather manufacturing factories (tanneries) in Ethiopia. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is difficult for Japanese experts to visit Ethiopia to provide technical support, so the project decided to film the techniques used in Japanese tanneries to produce teaching videos.

The raw hides from Ethiopian sheep have many defects like scars and blemishs, and even when tanned into leather, these defects are noticeable and do not increase the value of the product. This has been a major issue. Since the percentage of raw hides with defects is very large in each tannery, causing them to hold a lot of inventory, the tanneries supported by the project requested technical support on how to upgrade their techniques. Therefore, the purpose of this teaching video is to explain the techniques of leather finishing to make the defects less noticeable.

On August 04, 2021, the project started shooting with the cooperation of Ito Sangyo Co., Ltd., which manufactures sheepskin and other leather materials in Soka City, Saitama Prefecture. The representative, Mr. Tatsuo Ito, is a soft leather expert who used to visit tanneries in Ethiopia many times to buy sheepskin. For the technical transfer, the project received pre-finished leathers (crust) with defects from Ethiopia and Mr. Ito devised a finishing method that suited the material and the degree of the defects. Starting with the dyeing process, where they use a huge spinning drum, and continuing with the detailed checking process, the project could shoot one after another how the leather is finished using various machines and techniques.

In the scorching heat of the Japanese summer, Mr. Ito and the staff worked up a sweat to help us shoot at the factory. The remaining processes will be shot in late August, and once the teaching video is completed, the project plans to conduct an online workshop for tanneries using this video.

Shooting in front of the dyeing drums

Shooting in the drying room

Sheep leather before finishing. Numerous defects are along the spine line.