Kasperi Specials S.03 - the best Fold Top yet?

The Fold Top is our most popular best selling product and it turns heads wherever we go. As a product that lasts a lifetime, it is an investment that only gets better, more sustainable, and affordable with time. It is a fantastic companion for a day trip or even for a spontaneous overnighter in the woods. The Fold Top, with its flexible capacity, carries everything you need in one backpack. Whether it is for a weekend trip to the cottage or traveling for a city getaway abroad, the Fold Top can handle it. It might just be the last backpack you’ll ever need.

And now there is a new Fold Top on the block. The S.03 is a limited run of the Fold Top, made from Whitetail deer leather, developed from the ground to our specifications. The Whitetail is moss green, a new stunning color, with the frame part of the bag made out of our staple sturdy vegetable-tanned bovine hyde. We are stoked to bring the new S.03 to you, as the Whitetail is a tad lighter than the Yak and has an extra supple feel to it. The S.03 might take the trophy for the best Fold Top yet. 

We’ve received lots of interest for the Whitetail and we are opening preorders for it today, with the estimated delivery time in June. As a preorderer you make sure that you get the S.03, you support our production efforts and as a bonus, you'll get our utility strap set (two straps) as well as Kasperis own leather wax as an extra. Be sure to get yours while we still have them.  

Premium custom Whitetail leather for Kasperi 

Ahlskog tannery has set up a process of tanning Whitetail deer skins. They designed a Whitetail leather tanning recipe from the ground up for Kasperi, that matches our strict requirements of premium, vegetable-tanned, weather-resistant and ecological leather. The Whitetail has a waxed surface to further waterproof it and is supple and a tad lighter, making it a perfect match for our Fold-top.

How we got to the deer situation

In the 1930s, a couple of Whitetails were brought to Finland by Finnish expatriates from Minnesota, USA. At the time native Finnish deer species such as the Finnish forest reindeer and the Elk had been hunted to near extinction. 

One thing led to another and the population exploded to over 100 000 Whitetails today with the population doubling every 10 years or so. The overpopulation of the non-native species threatens native Finnish deer and elk. Furthermore, it causes around 6000 traffic accidents yearly. Thus the population growth is being slowed with 50 000 Whitetail hunting permits issued yearly in Finland.

This has led to a situation where most Whitetail skins are wasted as they are quick to go bad without the proper cold chain logistics. Ahlskog tannery has started to gather the skins to solve this issue and tanns premium Whitetail leather hydes out of them.

Proof of concept - Future-proofed ecological and sustainable leather?

The Whitetail can provide a sustainable, local supply of ecological leather that has some of the best properties out there. That’s also why we are creating products out of it. Local supplies make streamline supply chains and create local jobs.  Using the whitetail also makes use of a material that would otherwise be doomed for waste. 

For the foreseeable future, the bovine leather industry uses a waste side-stream of the meat-industry for its skins. So why bother with Whitetail? The way we look at it is that using Whitetail leather and bovine leather is solving the same issue of waste in different places.

Using Whitetail helps solve the issue of waste from gamekeeping. Using Bovine leather is solving the issue of waste from the meat-industry. Thus, buying Whitetail or bovine products helps promote the use of long-lasting products. Long-lasting products offset the consumption of less durable and less sustainable materials.

How the reservation deposits work

We’ve received lots of interest for the Whitetail and we are opening preorders for it today, with the estimated delivery time in June. By paying the reservation deposit you make sure that you get the S.03, you support our production efforts and as a bonus, you'll get our utility strap set (two straps) as well as the Kasperi leather wax, specially made for Vegetable-tanned leather as an extra. Be sure to get yours while we still have them. 

The preorder works as a reservation deposit from the final bag price of 650€ and can be canceled within 14 days of the order or turned into a Kasperi gift card. Once you've paid the reservation deposit you will get a code that you can use on our webshop that will discount the deposit from the product price. You will be notified by email when the backpacks are available.