Elderberries: The New Hero! From Superfood to Supertextiles!

What are Elderblue Concepts?

Since 2024, food waste in the UK has been reducing slowly, due to sophisticated technological interventions during production, and with ordering systems (1) for manufacturers and retailers to select foods for accurate selection and restocking. However, due to the extraction of valuable components for juices, foods, and medicines, waste is still generated. Fortunately, we were able to identify in our bioregion, an elder tree orchard called Bush Barn Farm, which produces its own cordials and supplies organic elderberries to food and beverage companies. From their juice processing supplier, they have a percentage of waste called ‘cake,’ which consists of the skins and seeds left over from pressing the elderberries.  Due to the strong dye quality of elderberries, and the variety of blue and purple tones they offer, we have put this waste to good use and developed a collection of Elderblue Concept products we feel very proud of.

Elderwool

For many years we have worked with regenerative farms, like Fernhill Farm to learn everything we need about handling sustainable wool, in terms of how to select sustainable farmers that have a regenerative approach to their farming, and to help us by identifying native sheep breeds that provide fibre that can be used for textiles. We source the best local wool for our Elderwool cloth from Butser Ancient Farm, Manor Farm, Hatchlands Estate, and Merrist Wood College, that possess rare sheep breeds. We dye our wool with Elderblue dyes, knit, and loom weaving all our fabrics from our Guildford Racks headquarters, utilising the historical craftmanship and talent that comes from Farnham Craft Town and our teamof textile designers, by keeping traditional textiles alive.

Elderbio

We have recently launched our first patented biomaterial, named ‘Elderbio’ developed from elderberry waste. Our team of researchers have been studying the construction of elderberries and has developed Elderbio yarns that have integrated colours from the elderberry offered in an array of blue and purple colours. Elderbio yarns are biodegradable, full of anthocyanins from the elderberry that are good for skin (4).

Why Choose Elderberries?

In the Middle Ages, when Guildford Blue was being produced, the local wool was dyed blue using a plant called Woad, which was farmed locally and over the years exhausted the soil (5). The soil grade is average to low in Guildford (6), making it difficult to sustain farming one crop growing in one place. So, we had to start thinking bigger, which led us to researching food waste in the UK and in our area. We have gathered a collection of agricultural, sustainability, and science experts from Manor Farm, Bio Inspired Textiles and The Natural Environmental Research Council, to help us research the biology of elderberry waste to develop Elderbio and Elderblue. Not only do our products lend themselves to textiles, but we have also branched out into areas of the wedding and funeral sectors using our wool and Elderbio materials, which are less impactful on the environment than traditional materials.

Perfecting the Perfect Blue

Sarah and I are stood inside the HQ of Guildford Racks Project, which used to be an old mill called Town Mill. She tells me that it was once part of a thriving wool and textile dyeing industry, in Guildford up to the 1700’s. “When the council originally let us lease the mill in 2025, we found some old tools and copper dyeing vats that were used for dyeing Guildford Blue.” Sarah shows me two large, stained copper vessels in her dyeing facility. “We actually had these cauldrons restored and used them, along with other dyeing vats, to originally develop Elderblue.”

Sarah holds up a long piece of wool fabric from her latest Elderwool collection, dyed into a gradient from indigo to lagoon blue and adorned with a solar print of elderberry silhouettes in a repeated pattern. ‘Solar Printing’ was a printing technique developed by Sarah and her team of textile designers and engineers, comprising the use of solar panels on their HQ rooftop to expose objects onto the fabric.

“We were inspired by anthocype and cyanotype printmaking, and decided to see if we could do something similar using solar panels.” Anthotype and cyanotype are two printmaking techniques that involve placing objects onto a material coated with an emulsion. The sun exposes the image onto the material over a period of days and weeks.

Sarah uses elderberry cake, which has been altered in pH with an alkaline modifier using baking powder to make the colour bluer (3), and gin from Silent Pool Gin Distillery, to make their emulsion that is painted by hand onto the fabric. The elder tree branches are laid out in a repeating pattern, which naturally temporarily secures to the cloth. Over the course of three hours, the elder tree branch exposes an impression onto the cloth, revealing a beautiful and delicate pattern, something unlike anything we have ever seen before. "Traditionally, anthotypes would take days or weeks to expose in natural sunlight. However, with solar panels, we can accelerate the exposure process onto the cloth without fading the fabric's colour, which can occur if dyed fabric is left in sunlight for too long. Typically, we need to dye the cloth a bit more vibrantly than usual to compensate for any fading."

Guildford Racks Project produces a collection of limited-edition Elderwool fabrics every year, featuring anthotype solar prints dyed using their collection of Elderblue dyes. They're limited edition due to the lengthy process involved in making the cloth, which comes with a high price tag, but they're sought after because of their longevity and biodegradable properties.

"The wool is sourced from Merrist Wood College, using their rare breeds of Wensleydales and Portlands sheep. The fabric is woven on a mechanical loom, then dyed using elderberry cake. Once the cloth has been dyed, it is dried on large wooden racks. The final process involves painting the anthotype emulsion by hand onto the fabric, which is then laid out onto the solar panels." Sarah explains that they can only carry out this process in the summer, as the remaining seasons are too problematic due to rainfall.

I ask Sarah if she has had any problems along the way with creating the Elderblue dyes and how the wastewater is disposed of once they finish using it. “Elderblue took a long time to develop because Elderberries dye things red and purple. However, due to their anthocyanin compounds, the pH balance can be changed with the addition of modifiers and mordants (4) to create further colours, such as light and dark blues, and an array of purples,” she explains. Guildford Racks Project originally set out to develop one colour that was close to Guildford Blue, but they ended up with a collection of colours to offer their customers. “It was a happy mistake!” she says.

Originally, Sarah planned to create a natural dye that adopted a cradle-to-cradle approach (6), meaning the products they produce can be recycled or returned to the soil to provide nutrients and food to plants and living things. "I imagined Elderblue being reused as a bio-fertiliser for farming, providing crops, soil, and insects with nutrients to thrive on, which would be a positive contrast to the toxic dyestuffs fashion companies used in the 2020s, that polluted the seas and lakes in the areas where they were used." The curveball was with the usage of modifiers and mordants, that made the wastewater either too alkaline or too acidic to then be discharged into the soil and used as a fertiliser. Sarah goes on to explain that PH balance in the wastewater needed to be neutralised, and tested on soil, to see how it reacts.

Below is a timeline detailing the milestones achieved by the Guildford Racks Project on its sustainability journey, illustrating the path they have taken to reach their current status.

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