Two bedding majors plan to hike prices

At the Market— In the face of foam price hikes and shortages, bedding prices are going up, the industry's two largest producers have confirmed.

No. 1 Sealy announced Thursday that it will raise prices across all of its domestic product lines to offset rising costs of raw materials

used in the production of its bedding lines. The price increases will vary by product line and mattress size and are scheduled to take effect Nov. 14, Sealy said. It did not provide specifics on the size of the increases.

No. 2 Simmons, meanwhile, is telling dealers it will be raising its prices 12% to 15% per set, effective with orders entered after Oct. 28.

But another bedding major, Tempur-Pedic, said it has not been affected by foam price increases and doesn't anticipate that it will be in the next few months.

In an Oct. 19 letter to its dealers, Simmons CEO Charlie Eitel and Steve Fendrich, executive vice president of sales, made these points:

• "We have been put on allocation by all three of our foam suppliers. The allocated percentage has been a moving target with very little reliability. We are doing what we can under these circumstances to ship all orders of our branded products, but in the meantime we are temporarily suspending the shipment of our current DeepSleep products. To address this shortage, we have engineered three new DeepSleep models that utilize materials other than foam."

• "Another step that we have taken to alleviate the effect of the foam shortage is to replace the Bloc foam that lies below the Pocketed Coil springs with Bloc fiber pads on the majority of our Beautyrest Classic models and certain of our Beautyrest World Class models. The Bloc fiber pads have already been tested using our rigorous testing protocols and have either met or exceeded the performance and durability levels of the current materials being used."

• Simmons will honor all orders at today's prices as long as they are entered into its system by the close of business on Oct. 28. All orders must ship as available but no later than the close of business Nov. 11.

Sealy management, in a market press briefing Thursday, said it will soon have its foam supply chain back to normal levels. In a press release issued later, CEO Dave McIlquham said, "We've turned the corner on the supply chain issues relating to the shortage of TDI (a chemical used to make foam). Now, we're focused on working as thoughtfully as possible to help our retailers manage the impact of these costs on their businesses."

He said that working with customers and Sealy's international supply chain, the company has been able to increase its total supply of foam to meet forecasted customer demand.

Tempur-Pedic, meanwhile, said it has had no disruption in its foam supply chain.