Luxury car makers and airlines have beaten a track to a Wanganui tannery for its high-quality leather.
Tasman Tanning products now upholster the seats of Air New Zealand’s new Airbus 320s and its redesigned lie-flat Premium Business Class seats in its fleet of Boeing 747s and 777s. Qantas is using Tasman leather on the seats of its new Jetstar airline.
Tasman also supplies leather to three leading vehicle manufacturers – Audi, Mercedes and Range Rover.
Tasman Tanning managing director Hunter Tait said representatives from Audi, Mercedes and Rover do an extensive audit of the manufacturing plant every two years.
“They tell us it is one of the tidiest factories they inspect in the world.”
Not only upholstery leather flows out the dispatch doors of this successful company. Leather is also produced to supply the insatiable demand for shoes in Asia and Australia.
Wet-blue supervisor Kevin Gracie (blue overalls) and Paul Nicoloff grade wet-blue hides.
