OUR STORY

QUALITY MATTERS!

Zeebro's legacy and tradition began with our great-grandfather, as a young boy, starting to work with a hide merchant in the mid-1940s. With hands-on experience, he learned very quickly how to distinguish between good hides and diseased or damaged ones. He also learned everything about wet salting as the curing process to prevent bacterial growth. This experience taught him how hides would react in different weather conditions, and how to preserve them before the decaying process ensued.

Owing to his knowledge of hides/skins, his dedication and enthusiasm, and attention to details, our great-grandfather was soon promoted to the sales representative position at this small business. Since majority of his customers worked in leather tanneries, he would gather information about their needs, requirements, and challenges towards tanning hides/skins, and in doing so, developed a primitive understanding of leather tanning process. More importantly, he built strong friendships with some of these tanners and technicians that, unbeknownst to him at the time, played a significant role in his future endeavors.

While selling hides and skins to tanneries and his close interactions with tanners and technicians, our great-grandfather developed a strong aspiration of taking his knowledge and experience to the next level. So, he discussed the idea of setting up a tannery with his tanner friends. Although it seemed like an uphill task, and financially challenging, his friends agreed to join him in this venture. With each friend’s unique expertise in the tanning field, they were strongly optimistic about their success. Hence, with the help of his friends, our great-grandfather became one of the pioneers in establishing a tanning unit in his small town.

Progessing to the future

Bringing their experience and knowledge together, this group of friends developed a vibrant, modern and advanced system of wet-end beamhouse and tanning process of their time. They built standards in the use of water, salts, chemicals and preservatives, and maintaining right level of pH at every stage—be it soaking, liming, deliming, bating, degreasing, depilation, fleshing, pickling, and tanning. Their dedication and commitment to produce quality leather inculcated in every single worker of their tannery a drive to work hard towards perfecting their task. Their resolve and focus on producing highest quality leather gave birth to a mantra in their tannery, that was: “Quality matters!”. This resolution and insistence on producing quality leather have been carried on by our grandfather and his brothers when they joined the family business.

When our grandfather and his two brothers started working in the tannery, they realized that the small tannery they inherited from their father was not sufficiently big enough to cater to their customers’ demands. Hence, they expanded the size and operation of the tannery manifold, while updating the standards and operational procedures to incorporate industry’s best practices of the time. During the 1970s and 1980s, our tannery went through huge transformations, but our mantra remained the same: “Quality matters!”.

ENDEAVORING TOWARDS NEW VENTURES

As the third generation joined the family business with its modern academic and technical knowledge of leather tanning, a new era of progress and development ensued. Whereas the standards and operational procedures were further improved, our father and uncles decided to take their business to the next level, that is: setting up a new unit for dyeing, fatliquoring, and finishing.

With the application of modern academic and technical knowledge, vibrant operational system and structure, and tradition and legacy of the past, our family started producing finished leather that was second to none in quality. The decade of 1990 was certainly a period of harnessing the enviable reputation of our forefather’s legacy and tradition of producing the finest quality of leather.

Having realized our forefather’s dream of triumphing over the complete cycle of tanning operation from skins/hides to furnished leather, 2000s was the time when our family developed a new aspiration of manufacturing leather products. It was certainly a huge undertaking, and very ambitious for a leather tanning business to venture into a completely new line of business. It did take us a few years to put together a team of experienced pattern masters, leather cutting experts, state-of-the-art stitching unit, and quality control department, but once the setup was complete, it was only a matter of time before we started manufacturing leather products for some of the renowned international brands based in Europe and Australia. Since our tanneries had already been producing quality leather, it was very easy for us to acquire all the important certificates that are required to sell leather products, particularly in European market.

Sky is the beginning...

Having successfully worked with popular international brands for twenty years, and with the fourth generation entering the family business, we decided to embark on a new entrepreneurial journey, that is: building our own brand. Notwithstanding it sounded like an uphill task at the idea stage, we were confident that we will achieve this goal with the help of our tradition of 70 years, wisdom and guidance of our elders, strong infrastructure, knowledge and experience of manufacturing leather products, and very passionate and ambitious youth. Most importantly, we strongly believed that we owe it to our forefathers’ legacy to manifest our mantra, "Quality matters!” through the products with our own brand name on them.

With this belief and ambition, we successfully launched Zeebro in 2023. Since our products have already been available in Europe through the European brands, we decided to expand our reach to North and South America and establish our headquarter in Northeast Florida. With our base of operation in Florida, it was easy to decide to launch our new brand at the annual Daytona Bike Week. Granted this brand is still in its nascent stage, the tradition behind it is mighty and the team behind it is passionate, dedicated, creative, and experienced. At this stage, we have focused on producing classical styles, while our designers are constantly working towards developing new designs. At Zeebro, our goal is to produce quality leather products for the quality lifestyle of our customers. We feel pride in the fact that Zeebro is truly the culmination of our family’s American Dream.

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