Digital Extra: Fatal Foam

10.1.03

By PETER B. LORD
The Providence Journal

Serta Inc., the nation's second-largest mattress manufacturer, is breaking ranks with most of the industry and unveiling new lines of flame-resistant mattresses.

Beginning with its most expensive product lines and working down, Serta expects all of its new mattresses to be flame-resistant by early next year.

While a few small manufacturers, such as Carolina Mattress Guild, in North Carolina, have been making flame-resistant mattresses, leaders of the country's four largest mattress companies have repeatedly voiced support for improved mattress safety, but then raised questions about costs, regulatory details and deadlines, and the role of bedding in mattress fires.

Just this past summer, Serta President Ed Lilly was quoted as saying he supported revisions in proposed mattress-flammabilty regulations in California that were less stringent than earlier proposals and extended the deadline for compliance for another year.

A few weeks later, Serta ran advertisements in trade publications stating that because there are 20,000 bedroom fires every year and a death in a bedroom fire every day in the United States, it planned to act sooner rather than later.

"We can begin saving lives now with safer products," said Lilly in a story in Furniture Today. "If you consider that someone in the United States dies in a bedroom fire every day, many of whom are children, we should not wait to offer safer mattresses until regulations are mandatory.

"We believe we have a responsibility to produce safer mattresses as soon as possible," added Lilly. "In terms of safety, the issue of open-flame-resistant mattresses is equally as important to our industry as airbags were to automobiles 10 years ago."

Kally Reynolds, director of marketing at Serta, said that when Lilly welcomed the postponement of the California rules, he was saying the industry as a whole could use the extra time. But Serta was always working toward developing flame-resistant mattresses.

"We're moving ahead now because we think we've found a solution that works and can save lives," she said.

Outside of trade publications, Serta's announcement that they will begin to make safer mattresses has gone unnoticed.

In trade publications, other mattress makers have said they are not planning to copy Serta's actions now. Simmons Co., Sealy Corp. and Spring Air Co. officials all were quoted as saying they are planning to comply with the proposed January 2005 deadline mandating flame-resistant mattresses in California.

Only Sealy responded to the Journal's request for comment. A spokesman said the company is building a major flammability testing facility at its corporate headquarters and plans to have flame-resistant products "long before any deadline."

David Perry, executive editor of Furniture Today, the leading industry trade newspaper, called Serta's decision "bold, courageous action."

"We applaud Serta's move," Perry wrote. "This is how market leaders act. Serta has made a powerful -- and wise -- leadership statement with its actions."

The decision was also hailed by Whitney A. Davis, the California lawyer who represents burn victims and who organized an advocacy group called the Children's Coalition for Fire Safe Mattresses.

"We believe the new system will save the lives of children and that Serta has made a crucial first step toward implementing a sleep system that will substantially protect consumers from a grave risk of death or tragic injury," Davis said.

"The Children's Coalition has yet to confirm Serta's claims of mattress fire safety through independent testing of their new models," he added. "However, we have received basic information on the new techniques used by Serta. While those techniques fall behind the scientific state of the art, they reflect a quantum leap in protection beyond the current manufacturing practices of the mattress industry."

"We've been working on this for three years," said Al Klancnik, a Serta vice president and an engineer in charge of developing the new product lines.

"It kind of shook up the rest of the industry," he said. "They're trying to wait, and we're saying why wait?"

Klancnik is president of the industry's Sleep Products Safety Council, which promotes mattress safety issues.

Serta will use FireBlocker, a proprietary blend of natural and synthetic fibers in the outer layers of its mattresses and box springs.

"Everything is burnable," Klancnik said. "This works by blocking the flames and giving significantly more time for people to get out."

The fire-resistant capabilities will be offered first in Serta's high-end mattresses in the next few weeks, according to Klancnik.

He said Serta is getting a mixed reaction from furniture stores.

"Retailers are either neutral or they're positive -- it's another reason to buy a product today," he said.

He also minimized the claims of some manufacturers who said mandating flame resistance would dramatically increase the costs of mattresses.

"Certainly there is a cost addition to putting this in, but if you skillfully design your beds, you can minimize the cost impact," Klancnik said. "We're not giving up any important price points on these mattresses."

Kally Reynolds, head of marketing at Serta, said the company is educating retailers now about the new mattresses and plans to launch a "consumer campaign" after the Fall International Home Furnishings Market trade show in High Point, N.C., later this month.

Serta, best known to the public for its advertising campaign featuring animated sheep, is owned by eight independent licensees who run separate marketing, manufacturing and sales operations in 27 factories in the United States as well as 31 elsewhere in the world. Its Perfect Sleeper line is the country's best selling premium mattress.

Based in Illinois, the company has 4,800 employees and $870 million in sales.

It's the number one supplier to hotels and motels.

Sealy is the number one mattress retailer in the country. It employs 6,480 people and sells through more than 7,000 retailers and operates 30 factories around the world. Its labels also include Barrett and Stearns & Foster.

Simmons is the number three mattress maker, employing 2,900 people and selling through nearly 8,000 retail outlets. Its labels include Beautyrest, Deep Sleep, DreamScapes and Olympic Queen.

Spring Air, the number four mattress maker, employs 1,600 people and produces specialty mattresses featuring asthma and allergy sensitive fabrics. Its labels include Back Supporter, Four Seasons and Comfort Caress Collection.

In a recent column, Perry, of Furniture Today, exhorted the industry to follow Serta's lead.

"Too many in our industry see flammabililty as a negative," Perry wrote. "Talking about fires -- even reducing fires -- will only alarm consumers, these folks say. Furthermore, there is a widespred feeling that consumers will not pay for safer mattresses.

"Well, it's our job as an industry to change that feeling, if it's indeed held by most consumers. That's called marketing, and we are very good at it in the mattress industry. There is absolutely no reason not to use our marketing skills to turn improved fire safety into a positive."