James Cropper, a 175-year-old family business, is at the forefront of prestige paper innovation and a supplier to the world’s leading luxury brands.

The business has been carefully stewarded and nurtured by six generations of the Cropper family and is renowned globally for individual expertise in color and fiber innovation.

The new Wainwright Colors from Nature range is the papermaker's latest innovation, creating value from waste streams. Plant-based dyes have become common in the textile industry, but the new collection marks the first application to paper. Designed primarily for the packaging and publishing sectors, extensive research and development work has ensured no compromise on the technical performance of the range.

"Whether it's used coffee cups, food waste or other pre and post-consumer waste, by repurposing these valuable streams, we continue to support transition to a more circular economy," Joanne Storey, R&D Programme Lead at James Cropper, commented. "From the use of renewable materials and low impact manufacturing processes, to producing high quality products that are easy to recycle, we are committed to sustainability at every turn, and our expertise in color is part of that.”

The first two shades, Limestone and Herdwick Brown, are both derived from rosemary residue, a waste stream in some food production. The rosemary is grown as an annual agricultural crop before the non-edible waste from the plant is extracted and upcycled into the dye, which is added to James Cropper's 100% FSC recycled paper. The collection offers a bleed-free, rub-resistant dye with lightfastness similar to that achieved using industry-standard synthetic dyes.

The colors were created to celebrate James Cropper's partnership with The Wainwright Prize, an annual literary award for the best UK-based nature and global conservation writing. The colors are inspired by author Alfred Wainwright's love for the Lake District landscape and James Cropper's desire to protect it.

Storey continued, "It's the first-time plant-based dyes have been used in modern papermaking; a breakthrough which marks the first step into the development of more natural colour options. We are investigating botanical dyes extracted from a wide variety of origins including plants, shells and fungi; and expect the range to expand significantly."