Tempur-Pedic opens U.S. plant
Huge facility will support growth
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, January 28, 2007
Albuquerque, N.M. — Visco-elastic mattress and pillow producer Tempur-Pedic officially opened a $90 million, 800,000-square-foot plant here, which the company says is the world's largest mattress factory.
The new plant will produce mattresses for retailers in the western half of the country. Retailers in the eastern half will continue to be served by Tempur-Pedic's factory in Duffield, Va. Pillows for the U.S. market will continue to be made at Duffield.
The new facility is expected to support continued U.S. growth for Tempur-Pedic, which has vaulted into the ranks of bedding's largest producers.
CEO Tom Bryant said the state-of-the-art factory includes automated functions and reflects the company's latest production techniques. The plant eventually will be able to produce up to 60,000 mattresses per month, he said.
Tempur-Pedic began construction on the facility in September 2004. It is located on a 50-acre site on Paseo Del Volcan in northwest Albuquerque.
Imports not needed
Bryant said that with the new plant, Tempur-Pedic should not have to import mattresses from its factory in Denmark to meet growing U.S. demand. Strong demand worldwide has led the company to double the capacity of its facilities in Duffield and Denmark in the past three years.
Each of those plants is about 500,000 square feet.
The footprint of the new facility in Albuquerque is large enough to allow for expansion, Bryant said.
The visco-elastic sales boom continues, he said. Last fall, when the bedding industry's performance was "pretty flat," Tempur-Pedic saw mattress unit sales increase by double digits, Bryant said.
Chinese bedding producer Xilinmen said last year that its 520,000-square-foot mattress factory in Shaoxing, China, was the largest in the world, a claim that wasn't publicly challenged. Bryant said it is nice to reclaim that honor for a U.S. mattress factory.
