Sleepyhead invests in Aussie plant

Kiwi bedmaker Sleepyhead is investing A$35 million ($43 million) in a new plant in Melbourne which will open in September.

Wholly-owned by the Turner family for 75 years, Sleepyhead has invested heavily in new environmentally-friendly foam manufacturing technology.

The process uses German-made machinery and high pressure CO technology to make polyurethane foam. It eliminates the traditional use of the toxic solvent methylene chloride, a 'blowing' agent that puts the cells in foam.

The company has already established a $10 million foam plant in Auckland which began production early last year of DreamFoam, using the new technology.

The new Australian plant will run the same Evocell technology, but on a larger scale.

Sleepyhead was recently awarded a Green Ribbon from the Environment Ministry for improving air quality through its technology.

Director Craig Turner says its new plants resolve the thorny issue of making polyurethane foam without the two chemicals traditionally used.

"They are as bad as they sound. One is TDI and the other is methylene chloride, TDI can be filtered out so it doesn't go into the atmosphere  methylene chloride unfortunately can't be.

"Methyl chloride has been banned in most western countries for at least the least five years and as many as 10 years. They introduced it to replace the CFCs, which is worse."

The other upside, says Turner, is that the liquid CO gives them a more refined product.

"It's not often that you get all the stars to align and you get two benefits out of something like that. The actual product has a much better feel for the consumer."

Sleepyhead started making polyurethane foam in 1983, but stopped when CFCs were banned because methylene chloride 'was just too horrific for us to contemplate'.

Instead it bought its foam from other suppliers in Auckland. There is now only one other foam supplier  Vita NZ.

Sleepyhead operates out of Auckland, Christchurch (which is the only latex manufacturing plant in Australasia), Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.

The company also makes carpet underlay, recycled into reconstituted foam.

"Recycling's a huge part of our business. We use recycled timbers. We use a lot of recycled products," Turner says.

"We're currently investigating how we're going to recycle mattresses so that the steel will be extracted and melted down and reused rather than going into dumps, and the fabric be used in other products."

Intentions of a foray into China were quickly scuttled after the Turners found an incompatibility with their business approach.

"We felt we didn't understand the Chinese culture enough to be able to compete there and we looked at the number of companies that had fallen over in Australia and look how close that is to us. How could we possibly do it in China? So we decided we had to embrace New Zealand and find the answers."

Sleepyhead in New Zealand put through 220,000 pieces this year  mattresses, some with bases. The 160,000 currently made in Australia is small but further growth is expected.

"We've been in Australia for some 15 years, but we've been exporting. That was the true commitment to embrace Australia. The interesting thing about this foam plant is that nobody's done this in Australia. When we open this up it will be the first. It's incredible, just bizarre that nobody in Australia's embraced this."

Turner says the company's strength  there are 1000 staff in total  comes from the wider family's continuing passion for the brand and its insistence on making every component for its bed locally. Both he and his brother Graeme are directors on the board.

"We come up to 75 years this year in business and we're still family-owned. We've got the third generation here and the fourth generation coming through to run the business [see above] and one of the things that we've decided as an organisation is to stay in New Zealand, stay as New Zealand manufacturing.

"I'm very passionate about it. I've said it before, if you cut my heart open, you'll find a spring in there."

- © Fairfax NZ News