Pea-based pants may be next frontier as Lululemon looks at crops for clothes

VANCOUVER — Lululemon Athletica Inc. wants customers to have more pea in their yoga pants.

A consultant for the company gave a talk titled “Clothing the world with crops” at Protein Industries Canada’s pitch day earlier this week.

The not-for-profit industry association’s CEO says the pitch focused on using byproducts from pea processing as inputs for new clothing materials.

Bill Greuel says it’s not a far-fetched idea as more sustainable clothing materials, like bamboo, or other plant-based ones, like hemp, are already widely used.

He says the idea would be a “great opportunity” for the industry to utilize byproducts from pea processing when protein is extracted, like starch.

Lululemon declined to comment on the presentation, with spokeswoman Erin Hankinson writing in an email that “we don’t have anything else to share.”

The Canadian Press