SAGES: Turning Food Waste Into Future-Proof Colour
In a world where colour remains one of the most polluting elements of textile production, a London-based startup is offering a radical alternative. SAGES, founded by former London College of Fashion students Emily Taylor and Alice Simpson, is reimagining how our fibres are dyed. They are not using petroleum, or coal tar, or indeed any of the nasties found in synthetic dyes – they are using the vibrant pigments hidden in everyday food waste.
SAGES vegetable waste and resulting colour products
This month, the company received a significant boost: £190,000 in funding from the British Design Fund to accelerate the commercialisation of its sustainable dye technology. For an industry urgently seeking safer, circular materials, the timing could not be better.
Synthetic dyes are estimated to generate around 20% of global wastewater, leaching toxins across waterways, ecosystems, and communities. SAGES’ mission is disarmingly simple: remove them from the supply chain altogether. Their patented formulations extract colour from five waste streams: red and yellow onion skins, coffee grounds, blueberry pulp, red cabbage, and avocado stones, transforming overlooked kitchen scraps into high-performance, water-soluble, biodegradable dyes. Crucially, these formulas slot seamlessly into existing dyeing processes, offering manufacturers a true like-for-like replacement.
Blueberry dyed fabric samples by SAGES
What sets SAGES apart is not just its sustainability credentials but its performance. Natural dyes are notoriously difficult to stabilise, yet SAGES dyes have been successfully tested across both cellulose and protein fibres, meeting industry standards for wash and UV fastness. Collaborations already span fashion, interiors, and forward-thinking material innovators, including custom colour development for Patrick McDowell at London Fashion Week, countertop surfaces with James Burleigh, and fibre-dyeing trials with Bananatex and Story Mfg.
From the SAGES team, left to right:
Emily Taylor, Co-founder & CEO. Alice Simpson, Co-founder & CTO. Courtney Plumb, Head of Supply and Partnerships.
For Taylor and Simpson, the work is rooted in lived experience. “We witnessed both the damage synthetic dyes cause and the lack of easily adoptable solutions,” shares Taylor. “The more we researched, the more passionate we became about developing something sustainable that also performed at scale.” With regulatory shifts on the horizon and consumers demanding greater transparency, the founders recognised a rare opening for meaningful change.
SAGES colour products and corresponding textile samples.
The new funding will enable SAGES to move from lab-scale brilliance to wider commercial deployment, as well as expanding its dye palette, refining production systems, and deepening partnerships with mills, brands, and manufacturers. As Damon Bonser of the British Design Fund notes, “SAGES is tackling a critical environmental challenge with a solution that’s both scientifically rigorous and commercially viable.”
For those working with textiles across craft, design, and industry, SAGES’ work represents a hopeful evolution: colour that honours both nature and innovation, rooted in circular thinking yet ready for real-world application. A future where sustainable dyeing is not the alternative — but the standard.
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Image Credits:
Lead: SAGES Colour Range. Image courtesy of SAGES
All further images as credited in photo captions.