‘Science of sleep’ revives UK bedmakers

With house sales slowly recovering and doctors emphasising the benefits of sleep, Britain’s bedmakers are rousing themselves after six years of gloom.

The sector finally returned to growth last year but has shrunk by 40 per cent since the 2008 financial crisis. To revive their fortunes bedmakers are focusing on high-tech innovation and design after years of job cuts and factory closures.

But they face a big challenge. As Steve Freeman, managing director of Silentnight, pointed out, people are less likely to change their bed than their car or sofa. “You can’t show it off to your neighbours,” he joked.

So the industry is emphasising the “science of sleep” as more evidence points to its contribution to health. The wearable technologies being developed by Apple to monitor sleep patterns could soon be built into beds, Mr Freeman said. Your alarm could adjust to wake you slightly earlier or later when you are sleeping more lightly, for example.

Britain’s biggest bed and mattress maker has launched its first collaboration with a fashion designer, introducing a range of chic retro designs in bolder colours and patterns by Wayne Hemingway. A collection aimed at ageing baby boomers has also been developed by Silentnight in collaboration with the National Trust, with a mattress featuring a flower design from Virginia Woolf’s home.

“There is a huge amount of innovation going on,” he said. The business is working with Burnley FC and Harlequins rugby union club to help players rest.

It is also collaborating with Leeds university to create a “sleep pod”. This would be a unit with the bed inside that could control temperature, noise and lighting. “It’s my long-term vision. We want to create utopia,” Mr Freeman said.

Nick Booth, marketing director, said it had launched 20 new products in five years. “We plan to generate at least 30 per cent of our total turnover from products launched over the previous 24 months,” he said.

They include Airstream, which allows air through a cot bed mattress to ease fears about toddler suffocation, Geltex, a new type of foam, and Miracoil, a spring system.

It also holds the UK licence for Sealy of the US, which is developing electric beds that adjust for watching TV or eating. Silentnight is heading upmarket as the economy recovers, with its average selling price rising from £500 to £700. One range even sells for £1,000, which would once have been “nose bleed territory”, said Mr Freeman. It is updating its image for these upmarket brands but will retain its famous hippo and duck for basic brands.

Silentnight makes a fifth of the beds sold in the UK. Based in Barnoldswick, Lancashire, it employs more than 1,000 there and in northern Cumbria. It closed a factory in Batley, West Yorkshire, three years ago, shortly after entering administration.

The business still faces one possible problem: the way its private equity owners shed pension liabilities in the 2010 takeover, leaving several hundred pensioners on a reduced sum. HIG Capital, of the US, was able to buy its debt and then use a so-called prepack administration to emerge in control while passing the scheme and its £100m shortfall to the Pension Protection Fund, an industry funded safety net.

The Pensions Regulator is examining the deal to determine whether it took unfair advantage of loopholes to dump the £100m shortfall.