European sofa maker blasts polyurethane's cost, image

In a surprisingly confrontational presentation given on the first day of Europur’s Annual Conference, the president of furniture manufacturer Home Group Holdings, Lorraine McMahon, told flexible foam manufacturers and suppliers that the polyurethane foam business is struggling.

“You may find I see more weaknesses than strengths but I will try to be balanced,” McMhone said at the event in Berlin.

And, at least as far as an audience comprised of PU industry professionals was concerned, the perceived weaknesses outweighed the strengths.

She decried the “very high cost in foam” and suggested that her company is trying to use as little foam as possible.

“Since the start of COVID we’ve wanted to use more springs because of the high cost of foam,” she said, also suggesting that foam has a relatively poor image in the eyes of consumers. “In Germany, if you say ‘pocket springs’ they are prepared to pay more than if you say ‘foam.’ ”

She proceeded to warn the conference of all the materials she felt will usurp PU foam in the market: feathers, pocket springs, AirWeave linear low density polyethylene, “which is much easier to recycle than foam and so much greener,” as well as future alternatives including bio-based foams produced by fungi in combination with vegetal fibres and PU made using non iso-cyanate pathways, like canola- and linseed-oils.

Returning to cost, McMahon said, in a Q&A with Europur Secretary General Michel Baumgartner, “Why is there such a huge difference in the price of foam in China and Europe? At the end of the day, whether it’s mattresses or sofas, we compete in the end market with products from China. I will not be able to compete if I have to pay 60 percent more for foam.”

McMahon said that other materials in her business have seen less drastic price rises.

“We haven’t seen a huge price increase in textile per meter,” she said.

She said her company had considered making its own foam to make it more cost effective, but she felt she couldn’t justify the cost of equipment that she claimed will be obsolete in 10 years.

Home Group has four production facilities: two in Lithuania, one in Poland and one in Kvasilyv, Ukraine, in the eastern area of the country. McMahon praised the company's employees, but questioned how company's refusing to supply firms trying to continue business in the region.

“I think it’s a hard time with what’s going on in Ukraine,” McMahon said. “Even though I speak to (Home Group’s Ukrainian employees) every day it’s hard to understand how people can go to work every day when they have to go to the bunker each time Russian missiles are being launched in their region. 

She didn’t conceal her displeasure with “chemical companies, some of whom are in this room,” for refusing to supply Ukraine because it is a “country at war” and with Ikea for stopping production in Ukraine because it didn’t want to sell products manufactured in a war zone.