Meat in its pulsing, live form is surrounded and protected by, at the very least, skin, and usually something else, like fur, scales or feathers. But often when we harvest and butcher critters, we take that outer protective layer off, toss it aside, and rewrap the meat in something else. It would be like peeling a banana, cutting it up into smaller pieces, and then enveloping in paper or plastic for sale.

Of course, animal hides aren’t the same as a banana peel, and repurposing a cow’s hide to package up a meat order isn’t practical-it’s thick, hairy, gets smelly awfully quick and is unhygienic. One design studio in Iceland, however, set out to develop a way to use animal skin as a substitute for the plastic films often used in meat packaging.