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FR material suppliers expect busy 2005

By David Perry -- Furniture Today, March 20, 2005

Greensboro, N.C. — Suppliers of fire-resistant mattress materials said at a Flammability Workshop here that they believe 2005 will be a busy year for them.

The suppliers exhibited their wares at tables set up around the outside of the meeting room at the Sheraton Four Seasons Hotel, where the industry gathers each March to talk about flammability issues. The workshops here are sponsored by the American Home Furnishings Alliance.

More than a dozen suppliers, including testing labs and companies producing FR materials, took tabletop space at the recent workshop and pitched their latest products.

"I think this will be an active year," said James Ranson Jr., new business development manager at DuPont. "We see the customers looking for improved solutions, in terms of improved cost and in terms of improved performance," he said, adding that DuPont is addressing both of those issues.

"We have noticed an increase in national retailers converting to FR bedding," said Frank Land, president of McKinnon-Land, another FR supplier. "It's an onward-increasing trend."

Land said 2005 will see establishment of a national mattress flammability standard, with an enforcement date sometime in the future. Establishing such a standard "will be very positive for the industry and the suppliers, so that everyone can move forward together," he said.

Frank Kelly, director of sales for consumer fire-retardant products at Elk, said producers will continue to explore their FR options for products being shipped to California, where the nation's first open-flame mattress standard is now on the books.

"It is likely that what is dominant in California now won't be dominant at the end of the year," Kelly said. "Manufacturers are trying to find the FR products that best meet their needs."

He also predicted that manufacturers will begin shipping their FR bedding lines to states that border California.

Questions about when CPSC will be in a position to issue a final national mattress flammability standard add "another element of uncertainty that is not helpful," Kelly said. "This is another brake on the process. Time is life on this issue."

Edward Burnett, director of product development for Tex Tech, said his company will be pursuing smaller and midsized bedding producers that have yet to make decisions on their FR lines. "We are being told those players are looking at making their decisions in the second half of this year," he said.

"That's what they are telling us."

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FR material suppliers expect busy 2005

Mar 21, 2005

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