Applied Series: It is Possible to Turn Waste into Fabric with AltMat's Shikha Shah

Why Agricultural Waste?
Shikha Shah, with her rare blend of scientific expertise and compassionate leadership, tells us her transition from consultancy to building biorefineries to turn plant waste into textiles usable for the fashion and beyond. Coming to the realisation that if there's enough food in the world, then there's also enough waste in the world that can be reusable in some way. For Shikha after several years of research cracked the scientific formula that enables plant matter to be broken down and then transformed into fibre like structures. 

Biorefineries, Material Innovations, and Patience
However, science is not enough and it's about understanding the perseverance, patience, and funding required to navigate the complex fashion supply chain and material innovation landscape.  Deploying biorefineries takes time and a lot of money. The keyword here is patience, and Shikha pulls apart what fashion brands must be doing in order to support material innovators in the longer term.  Beyond commercial issues, Shikha is integrating integrating kindness into the core of business, a principle that she believes is especially transformative for fashion tech entrepreneurship.

Shikha and AltMat are featured in chapter 3 of the book Fashion Tech Applied.  Check it out.

Connect with Shikha on LinkedIn.
Check out AltMat.

*EXCLUSIVE OFFER* -20% discount for podcast listeners on the printed or ebook of Fashion Tech Applied. Purchase your copy at Springer here using the discount code*: 08cWPRlx1J7prE

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Transcript

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 0:03

Fashion Tech Applied is published, my co-authored book taking you through six chapters and covering the technologies and innovations powering the fashion industry. I'm Peter Jeun Ho Tsang, founder and CEO of Beyond Form, and welcome to the special podcast series Applied. Each episode, I'll be sitting down with incredible fashion tech professionals that are featured inside the book. On today's episode, I'm sitting down with Shikha Shah, founder and CEO of AltMat. I met Shikha a few years ago when she won a competition that we ran to participate in the Circular Fashion Summit. I was instantly blown away how she had managed to turn plant waste into textiles. She's a scientist, a businesswoman, but, most importantly, she's a leader that is running her life business and personally with kindness at its core. Shikah is featured in chapter three of the book, and in this conversation we pull apart why material innovations are still a small percentage of global production, why brands just aren't adopting the tech quickly enough, and why it's pushing her and similar companies to the edge.

Shikha Shah: 1:11

It's the problem of the speed at which this is being demanded. The demand is always being showcased in the future, but all of these companies are an existent presence right. So we have to clearly accept that somebody has to fund that presence to future while being frugal and pragmatic. So there is a touch of optimism where I'm saying that somebody will have to fund it because there's no other way. The speed of the demand that one of the major concerns right now.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:38

Let's get to another conversation with Shikha on this episode of Venturing into Fashion Tech. How are you today, Shikha?

Shikha Shah: 1:44

Very good. Thank you so much. How are you?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 1:47

I'm very well, thank you. I'm looking forward to today's conversation, all about material innovation and the great work that you're doing building out these biorefineries out in India. But before we get stuck into the conversation, I want to set the scene for our listeners. So, in terms of the global market size for advanced materials, it will reach 98.4 billion US dollars by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.5%. That's according to Xeon Market Research. It's going quite quickly. It's going to be quite a sizable chunk.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 2:24

In terms of next generation materials. This can mean many things and it is coming in many forms as well, so this could be, for example, plant alternatives with mushrooms, cactus, pineapple and so forth, bio-based, like you're doing shika things like animal proteins, fermented plant matter, and it can also mean recycled as well. We previously talked about this on the show breaking down existing garments and products into new usable fibers again. However, material innovation used in commercial collections is still a tiny percentage, and I'm sure you want to talk all about this a little bit later on so you can reach to see how your progress has been with some of your pilot projects. It's less than 5% of the global production, so the question is whether there will be ever a tipping point in the future. But let's start with you, though, shika. From consultancy to building bio-refunneries, the two things are just worlds apart, shall we say? How did that happen? Tell us your entrepreneurial story.

Shikha Shah: 3:31

I studied right out of college and the consultancy job that I had was pretty much the part of the time when I was at college. The question then remains and how did Alt-Mat happen? Interestingly, it has been all over my life. So if you see my father, when I was born, he started his company which recycles metal waste. So they take an automobile scrap, like batteries, and recycle it back to the materials which can be used in terms of metals. So I grew up watching him build those machineries and to me, because I was a child growing around factories and listening to his stories of how they build factories, how they run these supply chains, I thought that recycling is omnipresent.

Shikha Shah: 4:20

I did not have a context of the fact that recycling is not. On the other hand, my mom she was somebody who took care of my education and I was a very blessed kid when it came to academics. However, every time she was at school and teachers or you know, everybody saying that how amazing the scores are and this, and that she would listen to it patiently, and she would always end with this question which is like is she kind enough? What about her behavior? And that, as a kid, always left me with the question that what does she care more about? Is it my performance or is it how I am with other kids, with my behavior and other things? With my behavior and other things? Later on, when I was studying economics for my higher school, it kind of translated from performance and kindness into does the world need profit more, or goodness more or impact? That made me start to work with NGOs when I was still 16. And I watched a lot of NGO policies work and not, but led me to a conclusion that sometimes goodness never scale if you do not put economic models around it. So imagine that the goodness can be the center of your value proposition, but unless you're putting something meaningful and scalable around it, it would not lead to a legacy impact. So even impact means performance, and that inspired me to take an entrepreneurial route where I was very clear that I do want to make something which has goodness at the center and economic models around.

Shikha Shah: 5:58

It Just happened so that one of my college project was into textiles.

Shikha Shah: 6:03

I was studying business, then business and operations statistics, so all sorts of those things and textile supply chain.

Shikha Shah: 6:12

When it came as a project, it taught me, or it made me learn, that it was ironical that we, as Gen Zs, were claiming and fighting about climate action while having a lot of love for fashion and not knowing what it meant for climate. So it was just a very usual statement or I would rather say a sassy statement by a teenager in the class that it's ironical that we're standing for climate action while also loving fashion. And my professor said easy to say, very tough to do something, and that stayed with me. That's how I started studying a lot of textiles and other things, even though I was studying entrepreneurship later on, and that led to a lot of research, finally concluding that materials is one of the higher impact spaces. And then one of the other projects that I took in my post-grad was into agriculture, and then those dots that you see the agriculture project, the textile project, the way I was raised all got connected into forming and leading me to start Altman.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 7:14

So it sounds like father like daughter, then I guess your father was happy when you're like okay, I was going a similar path instead of my own factories. Is that correct?

Shikha Shah: 7:23

Well, I think he's a very optimistic man, but also a very practical one. So you know, like a 21-year-old daughter going and saying that, hey, I want to convert agriculture waste into textiles was also not sounding very practical. It's like, okay, all right. So it was not that practical in terms of the sound of it. So it was a very structured journey, journey into saying let's make a mvp, let's see if we can prove that model, what are the numbers around it. So it took its one sweet time into proving that yes, this can happen. I found the right people to do it alongside me and then, when the time was right, he was pretty convinced and he did become one of our first and key investors till date.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 8:11

And then, was it a case of osmosis, the fact that you saw your father being an entrepreneur, setting up his own entities and factories and so forth? Did you just then naturally get that, or did he have to help you quite along the way to launch OldMath? How did that work?

Shikha Shah: 8:28

He wasn't involved at all, apart from the funding, because metals as a science, like metallurgy versus textiles, is not similar at all. They have no parallels at all. So you know, something as simple as there is a yarn count or a fiber property was not something of his subject, but what he did understood was supply chains and businesses and entrepreneurship. So that was the chord that we striked on as a common point and I could share the strategies from that perspective, but more on dinner table rather than having him involved in the business.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 9:06

And I love the question that your mother posed to you when you were younger Is she kind? How did that make you feel when she asked you is she kind? It's not, because obviously with Asian families and for our listeners that can't see the screen right now, shikha is in India and obviously in Asia. So Asian families being Chinese myself, quite often it is more of those questions that are about performance and are you achieving your grades and so forth, but Ishikhand is none of that. How did it make you feel? And I guess has that seeped into your personal life as well?

Shikha Shah: 9:42

I wouldn't say it was bad or good. It did make me curious because, as you said, like, like in an asian ecosystem, and I'm talking like late 90s or rather early 2000s, and it was so much about performance then it is still so much about performance in the asian families, right? So, uh, it just. It just made me curious that that's a different question than I see any of my other friends being asked about. Maybe it was also a blessing because she saw that maybe academically I was doing good, what are the other things, and she wanted to be careful. But more or less, if I could summarize it in one word, it was inspiring that there are so many ways to look at life, there are so many ways to look at life that there are so many dimensions, and success might not mean that, hey, you've got your performance right and you're done, no. So I think it was inspiring.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 10:33

it was instigating curiosity, as as me, in me as a child and I really like that because we haven't yet had on the show that fashion tech impacts. Sustainability also equates to the person's core values, such as cleanliness, but if we stripped away all of that business element, all of that commercial element, it is essentially talking about how can you do better for the planet as well. I know this is something that really is part of who you are. She obviously in our previous conversations as well. We've known each other for quite a while now. Every conversation that we always ever had, you always managed to see that back in into, so it must be way part of who you are. So, then, for our listeners, what is Altman specifically?

Shikha Shah: 11:17

it is a material science company that focuses on manufacturing alternative fibers at scale, and when I use those words, I also mean to say that it's not only about building the technologies and saying that, hey, it's done, boom, you record. No, because that's not how it scales. Right after building the technology, there's a real struggle of industrializing it, of making sure that you're able to produce these fibers at scale at right profitability, or rather at right viability, the pricing, the feasibility. So what we essentially do is we make this technology, we kind of build infrastructure, but also supply chains and value chains. More specifically, it is all about agro-residue for us. So we take in agro-residue and make a natural fiber and while doing so, we make all those things that I mentioned Technology, the infrastructure, the supply chains, the value chains, all that it takes to make that fiber a mainstream fiber rather than an alternate.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 12:20

That doesn't necessarily just mean fashion. That could also mean textiles for automotive and other verticals as well, which I know that you do obviously produce textiles and fibers for other industries as well. Fashion, of course, luxury fashion. They have a very high, high, high standard of the fabrics that they use. But it's incredibly difficult. I alluded to at the start of this conversation that you are working in the bio-based elements of material science without giving any way, obviously, trade secrets. But what is the secret sauce to making it all work? Because I just I can't even figure out in my head how you would turn, you know, organic waste matter, ie plants into beautiful products that could be used by fashion.

Shikha Shah: 13:14

Imagine that a farmer has grown this crop for food. Once the food is harvested, they're left with biomes. This could be the stems, the leaves. Ironically, these are often the heavier parts of the plant which do not necessarily have a structured destiny. It can be wasted or it can be used for lower value uses. Now, what happened with us is that we studied these different kind of biomasses from different continents, different seasons, different crop types, to understand which of these biomass is scalable and right fit for us. So once this stem let's take an example of stem, in this case this left out stem is then used to separate the woody part and the fibrous part. There is step number one Once there is woody part that is separate and the fibrous part that is separate woody part goes into other applications like paper making or, you know, making the nonwoven or animal bedding and things like that.

Shikha Shah: 14:14

The fibrous part that we take in and we do a combination of proprietary, patented processes, which is different mechanical, wet, thermal processes. What you get at the end of the tunnel, At the end of these long process, cotton, linen-like fiber. So it is just like how you would imagine short staple linen or long staple cotton to be, Once you have that fiber in place, you can make anything out of it, which would mean that you can make home furnishing or you can make automobile, you can make fashion home textiles and so on. But from a very layman perspective this is how the structure looks like. You get agro-residue fibrous and the woody part and then fibrous part into spinable fibers, then yarns, fabrics and whatever you want from those fabrics.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 15:07

And is it a case of you just putting everything into a machine and putting chemicals with there? How does that work? No, it's a combination of a machine and putting chemicals with there.

Shikha Shah: 15:14

How does that work? No, it's, it's a um combination of a batch in line processing, meaning it has around eight to ten steps that it goes through, sometimes 15 steps that it goes through. And though it sounds like, oh my god, 15 steps, it takes us less than if we were to do it in like a most efficient possible way, counting for the feasibility and everything, we could still do it in less than 24 hours one day she could?

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 15:52

did you just wake up and be like, okay, I want to turn plants into fabrics? What was the aha moment? How did you come to the realization that plants could be turned into actual fashion fabrics?

Shikha Shah: 16:05

You know, we were talking about, interestingly, these different projects and when the last project was happening and it was around agriculture and industrial hemp and the economics behind it, at the same time in India there was a lot of news that there's a lot of crop residue burning that happens, and because of that they had to close down the schools in the capital, in the national capital of the country. So it was just very clear on my face that I'm studying agro-residue agriculture economics and this is a problem. And when we slightly looked into it, uh, it was like to me I did not come from a chemistry background originally, right, so it was a lignocellulosic material and the word cellulose there was the same as what goes into cotton, uh, viscose or live cell-like materials. So to a very curious mind who did not know a lot of chemistry back then, it was like, hey, then it's just the same thing at the DNA level. Why don't you figure out a technology to transform that into cell? And turns out to be.

Shikha Shah: 17:07

It was not a new idea from an academic reasoning and there was a lot of research on how one can do that. Maybe not as refined as textiles, but we could see that. You know, when you take any kind of waste, the question is what sort of value can you convert it into? So if you take agricultural waste and if you're making non-woven or if you're making paper if you're making, you know, bio, bioenergy those are probably cheaper or lesser value as compared to making fabric out of it. And those two reasonings were very strong. So we started to engage, learn a lot, have the right team members who understand textile chemistry, textile physics I started to learn it myself and then it took some years to really crack the code through, simply just trying like a lot of trials, a lot of trials back to back and then saying, okay, learning from it and kind of, you know, picking the right direction before you cracked that code, though you mentioned that it took you several years to crack it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 18:07

At any point where you're like, okay, I'm not sure I'm ever going to crack this code, I need to give up, like, obviously you suddenly became a scientist overnight and then you try to create the correct formulation. How did you know that you are on the right path?

Shikha Shah: 18:22

I was very enthusiastic about it, like the whole idea that if you could take one of the bigger waste streams of the world and convert it into one of the big applications for the humans as a need because you know clothing is one of the world and convert it into one of the big applications for the humans as a need, because you know clothing is one of the basic need um, it would be worth trying it. It it was just the fact that I had nothing to lose. I was so young. It's just that what, if it works, is was was predominant thought, and I would also be honest.

Shikha Shah: 18:53

I've always been very pragmatic as a person, while being optimistic, so we were very quick on understanding that, okay, this is the skill that I don't have, but this is the person who understands it, so let's onboard it or onboard her right. So we just very quickly moved on to saying that full-time, we need this. Now this has been sorted, we need this as more at the back end, and so I think it was the classic case of believing in the problem, in the solution possibility, while being very agile in terms of acknowledging the skills, acknowledging the importance of team and so on.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 19:31

I think that's really important with things like material innovations and I imagine this is the same thing for many of the founders of similar companies. You have to believe that it is possible, that you will eventually get to a fabric that is usable in fashion. It is going to be able to be commercially skilled, that you are going to be able to be commercially skilled, that you are going to be able to make an impact on the industry that you want to do. So you're featured in chapter three of the book. She about supply chain a quote from the book and we'll quote you directly if you see agricultural waste. The simple question then is that if there's enough food globally, there's even more waste for the world. I think that's a really thought-provoking statement. Why are we doing more with our waste globally?

Shikha Shah: 20:22

Two things to it, which is one that it's only now that the world is shifting from capitalism to conscious capitalism. Before this, the needs and the way we were looking at solutions was very different. There's a reason that polyester got into picture we were very much seeking performance, right, so it's. It's also, um, I would say the the need of the way humans are evolving, that we are now looking back at our systems and analyzing that this is a regenerative waste and maybe we can utilize it without. So it's only now that we're even using that lens, after having understood that what damage we're causing to the ecosystem around us, to the climate around us. So that's probably the bigger picture. But having said that that, once the world has now understood this, we are still in a very nascent stage of the entire industry from an agro-residue perspective.

Shikha Shah: 21:15

But I I would gladly and excitedly say that there's a lot that's happening. There's, there's a whole lot. There are solutions out there which are, um, catalyzing agro-residue into energy, catalyzing agro-residue into paper making or agro-residue into textiles, like we are. So everything has its own beauty, and the fact that there is so much agro-residue also brings to the picture that not all of this agro-residue is same. There are different varieties and that's the beauty that these different varieties and availability of these all varieties in excess allows us to do all of it. So there is a lot that's happening and I think there's only space to do more.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 22:00

So you think we could be doing more essentially with the waste that humanity is creating in the world?

Shikha Shah: 22:05

Absolutely. We can definitely be doing more and I think there's a lot from a technology standpoint that has happened. It is from the consumption standpoint that is not changing, or it's from the buying perspective that it is not changing at the speed that technology has come into the picture. So I don't think we are in a world where technology is a problem anymore. It's the supply chains, it's the economic side of the equation that is the problem.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 22:32

So what do you say to somebody that isn't doing more with their waste? When you see all of these big corporations, even at the very individual consumer level that you just see, are so wasteful, how does that make you feel? What would you like to say to those people?

Shikha Shah: 22:43

It makes me feel the feeling is pity because it's pretty much the ignorance. I think they're not aware of what is happening and it's the lack of right information and knowledge or acknowledgement that the dire situation that we are in as human civilization is connected to everything that we do. It has to do with the regular things and not one big thing. It's not just like, hey, it's that one big oil corporation, it is the one that's causing all the climate change. It's all of us right. So I think the feeling that happens is like the feeling of pity and also sometimes helplessness, because the cultural change is is a time-taking change and I do not know if we have that much time to afford this time for any of our listeners.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 23:31

I think maybe, before you go to sleep tonight, have a think about is there enough time for us to make a joke? It's just over, game over for human civilization. I think that could be a bedtime thought. Having said that, at the same time, it is no secret that bringing any new material innovation into the world is incredibly difficult. It takes time, a lot of time. For example, some material innovations take up to 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 years before it even gets to see the light of day in terms of particular product or commercialization. Of course, it takes a lot of money as well, and of course, there are investors now pouring a lot of money into startups like yours. And, of course, a lot of patients go back to your story about how you know. It took you quite a while to crack that code of creating that correct formula. These sorts of things can't happen overnight, so how are you coming over those challenges?

Shikha Shah: 24:31

Maybe I'll be honest here, like there is still so much to do, there are part of the codes that we haven't cracked fully, because I'm of the strong opinion that technology is only one part of the puzzle. Making factories is another part of the puzzle. But even having both of that does not solve that. You know that your material will be mainstreamed. The other part that I would be honest about is that I don't think that back then I knew what it meant to mainstream it as much as I know now, and maybe that's the same statement I'll make after a few years. But you know, you don't realize.

Shikha Shah: 25:08

You're in a mode where you're saying that, okay, it's this fiber that I need to make. Once I make the fiber, of course the world will take it, because there's so much right about it and I'm aware that I need to keep my pricing right, I need to keep my scale of production big enough and so on. But in spite of that, what you don't know is that you're making fiber and somebody there is buying a garment. So there's a yarn spinner, there is a dyeing house, there's a weaver, there is a garment here, and everybody has to kind of agree and accept the newness of the final. So it's like a long chain.

Shikha Shah: 25:43

Even if the brand was the main, main uh, you know decision maker between you and the consumer, it's. It's not the only decision maker. There are a lot of pseudo decision makers in between who you have to pass through to kind of reach that one decision. So I think there were so many things that you do not know in the beginning when you start with some of these material innovations, which are complicated because of the supply chain and not merely the tech, merely the technology.

Shikha Shah: 26:11

So that's, then, another part of the confession and maybe the answer part of the question that you asked is that I think I've started to understand that it is going to be. Patience is going to be one of the more needed ingredients in a case like this than it is in case of a general entrepreneurship. So I'm now aware and I chose it more consciously because I know that at the end of the tunnel there is only more impact to be made, it is only economically sound, it is only good and better. So I think it's it's also again having the same thing the faith that there is light at the end of the tunnel that keeps you walking extra mile than general entrepreneurship case.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 26:59

Do you think you would have ever got onto this journey, started this journey, if you knew how difficult it would be?

Shikha Shah: 27:08

She would rather say it is still fun. So I do not regret taking this, and the whole fact that I'm still continuing to choose to walk on the same path says that I must have.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 27:31

What's the feedback been like so far from some of your clients that are working with your fashion fabrics?

Shikha Shah: 27:36

They love the sustainability proposition that it brings to the table, right, like you're taking an agricultural residue, which is a scalable regenerative resource available out there. Then we are talking about the supply chains. We're taking it and making it into a fiber through a sustainable process. So they have also studied that our process does not use too much of water or hazardous chemicals. So there are LCA numbers that support Also the fact that what you get at the end of the process is a natural fiber, right? So it is something which looks and feels like cotton, looks and feels like linen, depending on how you apply it, and not like polyester or not like viscose. It has this richness of the natural fiber that you talk about. Having said that, the fiber is also biodegradable and recyclable. So in that context, if you see, there are four things that are happening, which is number one, the source is sustainable. Number two, the process is sustainable. Number two, the process is sustainable. Number three, end of life is sustainable. And number four, where what you're getting as an output is something which is desired. It is a natural fiber, rich aesthetic that they're seeing. So from a product value proposition, from a sustainability value proposition they like it From a supply chain integrity, or rather integration.

Shikha Shah: 28:54

Supply chain integration, like you know, kind of putting this fibers into those supply chains of who would spin the yarn, who would get the weaving, is a thing that takes time because there's a lot of learning curve at each end. Even if it's a drop-in selection, even it is a plug-and-play fiber, you can't run away from the fact that each material has its own intrinsic characteristics and though you don't have to change the machinery, you don't have to change the settings, and that takes change at the production level, that people will have to be willing to run it, and so on. So I think, from a value proposition, it's something that brands have been very happy about, whether it's the price points, the scalability from a doing, from an execution perspective. I think we're all, as an industry, trying to find out the answer to accelerate that process in a structured way, and we are the part of that finding. We are also finding out how to do this the best.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 29:51

On that notion. You're saying it's so incredibly difficult to get all of the different moving parts correct in the production that's the supply chain In the book you did actually explore. Though, what excites you about doing all of this is how you are able to reconfigure the supply chain so that it not only benefits the environment, but it also must make economic sense and for it to be globally inclusive, and I think you kind of alluded to this in some of your previous answers. But what do you mean by that specifically, and do you think the fashion supply chain will ever reach your ambition?

Shikha Shah: 30:29

I think there are two parts that I'm trying to touch in terms of that statement, which is one if you see traditional fibers, we have seen what all has gone wrong, whether it's the certification or the traceability or the over expectations or the underpricing, and then saying then, hey, but we were expecting this. So all of these things that were true in terms of the mistakes that traditional fibers have made. When you're making a new fiber, you have an opportunity to rewrite without making mistakes, so you can make sure that I know that chain of custody will have to be accost and calculated into it from day one. I don't want to do it without it. I know that the supply chain, traceability is a different story than chain of custody. So I think all those little things or loopholes that traditional fibers probably went through, you can know them in advance and try not to repeat them. So that was one part of it that you can reconfigure from the very roots of it, because it's often very tough to break the system and rebuild it, but if you're building it brand new, it might be slightly easy.

Shikha Shah: 31:47

The number two thing is what was the part of the agriculture is don't need to build one factory that has to do thousands of tons every week for that production line to be economically viable. No, we can do 1000 tons to 5000 tons in an entire year and then this production line will still be viable. So what I'm trying to say is it's not too small, it's not too big, it's not obsessed with the idea of giant factory and neither it is obsessed with the idea of cottage industry. It's saying that somewhere in between you can build a distributed landscape of manufacturing and thus a more connected supply chain and value chain in times to come. So these two parts about the supply chains, like the supply and the value, both the parts of it are exciting. They are the tough parts of it, but probably that's also the reason why it needs so much of your work and patience.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 32:45

And do you think we're ever going to reach your ambition? It sounds like you want to create a balance between capitalism, economics, environment, inclusivity. Do you think we're ever going to reach that? You know it's a very big ambition. Hats off to you for having that mission. Would you think we're ever going to reach it? You?

Shikha Shah: 33:03

know I I would first acknowledge that I'm a very small part of the big ecosystem out there, but I think that it's it's an entire economic level that we are now moving from capitalism to conscious capitalism. So it's it's not just me or not just Altmat, but I think the companies that are now being started and hope to be a legacy companies, unlike in past, the legacy, the most of the legacy companies being built now will definitely have a touch of consciousness, because that's the value proposition that's gonna strike the most with the generations to come. So, having said that, I think it's a bigger economic shift that we're seeing and it's it's a matter of decades. This is only start and we are a very, very small part.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 33:53

And I said at the start of this conversation that less than 5% of global production is material innovation. We saw earlier this year the collapse of RenewCell based here in Europe. That was a huge deal for the industry because they were famous. One of the poster childs of material innovations brought another huge attention to the fact that many fashion brands still aren't doing enough. Even the consumer themselves aren't doing enough for mature innovations to go a lot further. So what must the fashion industry do for material innovations like yours to survive?

Shikha Shah: 34:36

I mean maybe me commenting on when you sell would probably be now outdated because there's so much of you know analysis out there. But one thing whether, with the renew cell pause, I would not see a complete full stop, because I'm very sure that there are takers in terms of the infrastructure and the patents that they have. But with that or without that, anybody who is in the material science supplies like if we are the suppliers of the materials. I think they had started to understand that it is not the fault majorly in our own technologies or in our pricing points, or mainly that, but it's. It's the problem of the speed at which this is being demanded. So the, the demand is always being showcased in the future.

Shikha Shah: 35:28

But all of these companies act and exist in presence, right. So I think we have to clearly accept that somebody has to fund that presence to future, while being frugal and pragmatic. So there is a touch of optimism where I'm saying that somebody will have to fund it because there's no other way. It's not a problem of technology. It might be a problem of supply chain. I'm not very sure because those are, you know, very interesting tales and no company would let it out, whether it's us or them. Right so it's.

Shikha Shah: 36:00

It's also something that we need to understand that this has to be demand driven. You can't push the nail in in the wrong material, right? So it takes a word to kind of pin the nail in. So you might be pinning the right nail with the right hammer, but also the material you are pinning it in needs to be absorbing of the nail that you're doing. So I think it's kind of an understanding of that sort and I do feel that the speed of the demand, not the scale of the demand, it's the speed of the demand that is one of the major concerns right now so for any fashion brands listening to this specific episode.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 36:36

In a nutshell, pull your finger out. Make quicker decisions that are right for your company, so we, as, I guess, as a society, and maternity space can keep going.

Shikha Shah: 36:50

I think that's the crux of the matter here, in fact fact I'm also saying one more thing here Make those decisions faster. But also, I'm not worried if you come to me and say that I only want 100 tons of that fiber, it's okay. I don't want you to come and say 3,000 tons, so they're either talking nothing or too big. But you need to accept that there has to be a gradual acceleration and that will allow for saying that it's okay, even if you can commit to 200 tons, 300 tons, it's fine, but at speed.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 37:22

So, on that note, I want to finish off this conversation, Shikha, with a quick fire round of questions. The first answer that comes to your head are you ready? Okay, ready. Have you read Fashion Tech applied yet? Not yet. Not yet it's coming to you. I know there's been some postal delays getting your copy to receive it. Name one waste matter you'd like to turn into a fabric will I rereceive you like?

Shikha Shah: 37:45

that's on the top of my mind. If you ask me, the first thing that comes to my mind I'd rere a seed.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 37:49

Favorite material innovation besides your own.

Shikha Shah: 37:52

A very tough one. There is so many, I would say, the, the modern synthesis, the leather that they have made that that really makes me more curious about it.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 38:04

One brand that is doing well with material innovations.

Shikha Shah: 38:07

Everybody have had their own zone. It's a very tough's a very tough one to pick between the client Debatable one, but maybe the way the speed at which H&M is launching is interesting. I know it's a very debatable one, but I do see almost every material that you are looking for. At least they have a collection out.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 38:30

I imagine our listeners have their own thoughts about that answer. Best piece of advice for anyone wants to create their own material innovation.

Shikha Shah: 38:43

Sign up for it only if you are prepared for the long term.

Peter Jeun Ho Tsang: 38:47

I think it's a very good piece of advice, so thank you so much for your time, sheikha.

Shikha Shah: 38:51

It was a pleasure, peter. Thank you so much for having me, and I'm definitely looking forward to receiving the book and reading it and writing to you about it.