Meet the Vancouver-based entrepreneur making fabric from pineapple leaves

Pinky Piorque founded Canfil Textile Fiber Corp. as a sustainable alternative to mass-produced textiles.

In BC, pineapples are best known for their ability to fancy up a blended drink or cause a friendship-ending pizza debate (I’m pro-, in case anyone was wondering). But Filipino Canadian Pinky Piorque isn’t focused on the fruit for eating and drinking purposes: she’s using the fibres to make a sustainable pineapple fabric that’s rarely used in the West.

Piorque conducted almost a decade of material research before founding her Vancouver-based company, CanFil Textile Fiber Corp., in 2023. She has a background as a medical technologist, so she knew how to study up. She observed that many fabrics that are common in the Philippines, where Piorque grew up, hadn’t quite made it to the Canadian market yet. “In the textile industry in the Philippines, pineapple has been around for centuries—it was a luxury material, sold to Europe mostly for aristocrats,” she explains. Now, pineapple textiles (which are made from a combination of pineapple and cotton fibres) are easily mass-produced: because the Philippines grows a large chunk of the global pineapple supply, there is plenty of leaves and debris left over, and this would-be waste is used to make the yarn. In addition to pineapple, CanFil also champions Philippine-grown abaca fibre as a sustainable material alternative.

Canfil Textile Fiber Corp.’s pineapple fabric.

“I was raised by my mother, who was an entrepreneur—entrepreneurship is in my genes,” Piorque says. Her first step was selling abaca bags at local consignment stores; when those sold out, she decided to go all-in on the material. She returned to the Philippines to conduct research, meet with farmers and build her local relationships and supply chain. Piorque notes that transparency is very important to her and her work—as CanFil Textile Fiber Corp is still in its beginning stages, the yarn and fabric is manufactured in the Philippines, but she plans to soon move fabric production to Canada while continuing support Filipino suppliers (the yarn production will remain overseas, but the textile material itself will be made here). “I want it to be a socially relevant business, something that will bring a change,” says the founder.

Canfil Textile Fiber Corp.’s abaca fabric.

Piorque’s ultimate goal is for the Canadian fashion industry to embrace CanFil’s yarn and textiles; she says they are strong, soft, textured and dyed with all-natural materials like turmeric, mahogany, indigo and mango leaves. The abaca and pineapple fabrics—plus cotton and hemp, also produced by CanFil—can be used to make shoes, clothing, bedding and more. “My business is to here to support other businesses in their goals for sustainability,” says Piorque. Additionally, she hopes to be a leader for other Filipino Canadians who are interested in starting their own companies. “This is something that personal to me—I want to inspire my community to get into entrepreneurship.”