TômTex and Modern Meadow Dive Into Alternative Materials’ Future

Material innovation continues to bring forth more sustainable alternatives for some traditional materials, like polyester, nylon or leather. 

Ross McBee, co-founder and chief strategy officer of TômTex, and David Williamson, CEO of Modern Meadow, joined Alexandra Harrell, sustainability & innovation reporter at Sourcing Journal, in New York City for the Sourcing Journal Sustainability Summit to discuss the opportunities and challenges that exist along the path to the future of alternative materials. 

Modern Meadow and TômTex both make leather alternatives, and Williamson and McBee said that their respective companies have already been able to solve one of the most major hurdles plaguing some material innovation pioneers: adaptability. That is to say, the ability for the materials made to be integrated into existing supply chains, without extra equipment. 

For Williamson, that differentiator has been paramount to Modern Meadow’s value proposition. 

“By having a material that has the same chemistry and functionality that the leather industry is familiar with, it allows them to basically take this material and drop it directly into their tanning and retaining processes,” Williamson said.

TômTex, which uses shellfish and mushrooms as the base of its leather alternatives, said making it easier on manufacturers has remained a goal for the startup, which was honored by Time for creating one of its best inventions in 2024. 

“We worked really hard to make sure that none of the processes that we do are unfamiliar to people—like all the production processes are things that can happen on existing textile equipment,” McBee told Harrell. 

But ease of use isn’t the only supply chain consideration potential clients have taken an interest in, McBee noted. 

They also want to better understand where the materials are sourced—particularly in the face of geopolitical and economic uncertainties. As President Donald Trump’s tariff regime rages on, supply chain professionals have prioritized further diversifying their sourcing hubs. 

Because TômTex focuses on alternative leather, which requires a sequence of fewer processes than spun or woven alternative materials, McBee said its supply chain is fairly transparent. That provides it an advantage when speaking to clients—but it also means those clients can more easily speak to their consumers about sustainability. 

“I can tell you quite precisely, quite often, where this material came from, what we did to it and why that’s important, why that’s valuable,” he said. “Then, we can help you communicate that to the customer, as well, and be able to provide the transparency that I think a lot of people really are looking for in this space when they think about sustainability, talk about sustainability.” 

As many brands continue to—or begin to—interface with material innovation companies about introducing novel materials into their collections, sustainability isn’t the only consideration anymore, Williamson said. 

“Big brands are very interested in having a robust, sustainable material that also helps them meet their 2030, 2035 goals. The smaller brands are really looking for a beautiful, high-performing material that allows them to have a specific marketing narrative,” he said, noting that now, “Sustainability is viewed as a feature to the material, not the driving reason they’re adopting.” 

For that reason, both McBee and Williamson said alternative materials need to have an attractive consumer story attached to them. They also need to have an attractive feel, touch and fit, particularly as brands transition alternative materials into mass market collections, rather than small, trial collections. 

“It’s a really interesting journey to go from both for us…to go from these sort of capsule collections to being a true industry player, to being an established thing that sort of has its own category, that people know how to think about it, people know where it slots into their larger strategies. I think that’s the thing that the space really needs,” McBee said. 

As Modern Meadow, TômTex and other material innovation companies charge forth, barriers to entry still exist—and both McBee and Williamson said it will be paramount for legislation and consumer sentiment to further encourage the materials’ adoption.

But many companies haven’t fulfilled the hopes they set out to accomplish when they began working on alternative materials, and brands know that creating such materials can be a tall order. Williamson said, even when material innovation companies bring an excellent product to the table, they still face doubts over whether their sustainable product can create a sustainable business model that can survive in the long term. 

“One of the biggest barriers we see for adoption is not, ‘Does the material work?’ [It’s] not, ‘Is it attractive and beautiful?’ It is, ‘Are you going to be here in three years, and is your product going to be here in three years? Am I going to make a bet on you?’” Williamson said. 

Once brands make bigger bets on companies like TômTex and Modern Meadow, neither McBee nor Williamson anticipate traditional materials—in their cases, leather—will disappear into the abyss. They both know the market has room for both traditional and alternative materials. 

“I don’t think this field is going to completely displace the long and beautiful history of [leather] or any other textile. I think the way to think about it is that these materials become part of the conversation, become part of the things that people understand can be in the world, and therefore, they start asking for them more and more and more,” McBee said. 

But what Williamson believes alternative material companies can provide that traditional materials cannot is a high degree of flexibility. 

“The cow can only innovate so much,” Williamson joked. “We can continue to engineer and innovate inside of our material, probably into perpetuity.”