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Rubia 100% Natural Colours produces natural colour agents from a renewable, natural source. The company operates within the business to business market and in this way, it helps producers to realize durable and sustainable processes and products, both for companies and consumers. Rubia 100% Natural Colours, being market leader in the market for natural colouring, focuses on sustainable enhancement in the market of fashion, carpets, fabrics, leather, paper and cosmetics. Rubia 100% Natural Colours does have a positive CO2-footprint; that means that during the process of producing the dyes we take more CO2 then we produce. The product Life Cycle of Rubia is Cradle-to Cradle.

The madder root has been used for ages to colour fabrics. Already in the time of Tutankhamun (1350 BC), but also in Pompeii and in the old Corynthia fabrics dyed with madder were found. In the Middle Ages, the cultivation of madder was stimulated by Charlemagne. This is how the plant ended up in the Netherlands. Especially in the Province of Zeeland and the islands of the Province of Zuid-Holland it appeared to be thriving. Economically, madder became an important product here.

From 1600 to 1900, the Dutch madder met a very lively trade throughout Europe. From the second part of the 19th century onwards, during the industrial revolution, the synthetic chemistry as well experienced a fast growth. It was no longer necessary to use natural colouring agents because colouring agents could also be made synthetic-based. Those colouring agents appeared to be even cheaper. The cultivation of plants with the purpose to make colouring agents highly decreased from 1860 onwards. At the beginning of 1900, it was completely gone. 

However, the increasing environmental demands which should be met at the production of synthetic colouring agents and a shortage of the raw materials (petroleum and coal tar) for these colouring agents, forces us to extract our colouring agents again from natural and renewable materials. Not only the price of synthetic colouring agents will increase over the next decades, but the market will also demand for durable products.

In 1990, Professor Ton Capelle from Wageningen already foresaw this and he initiated a research into extraction of colouring agents from madder. In 2001, Dr Ir Dorien (G.C.H.) Derksen MSc took her doctoral degree in this subject with the thesis ‘Red, redder, madder. Analysis and isolation of anthraquinones from madder roots (Rubia tinctorum L.)’. In January 2005, Rubia started to build a production site for colouring agent from the madder plant.

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