Brentwood Memory Foam

[phoenix]

Hi dzignr_tastz,

1. They are advertising that this particular line of Brentwood mattresses are “Made In The USA”, which, given their importing practices, if they are indeed not “all of virtually all” made of US-sourced foam, this stands to be a decent FTC violation. I did, however, see a horizontal and vertical foam cutting machine on one of those bills of lading, so that throws another variable into the mix.

One of the challenges of some “made in the USA” claims is that the mattress may be assembled in the USA but the materials are imported from elsewhere. It’s certainly possible that foam buns are being imported from China that are being slit and assembled into a mattress in the US. SilverRest is also a licensee for King Koil which is a top 15 manufacturer so it wouldn’t be unusual that they would be importing a foam slitting machine. It would be interesting to look at the law tag on your mattress to see what it says.

2. None of the companies you noted (SleepShop, BRK Group, or SilverRest) are on that CertiPUR-US list, which coincidentally, would make perfect sense if they are indeed importing their foam. Additionally, if that’s the case… more false advertising practices.

There are a few Chinese foam manufacturers that are on the CertiPur list and your post led me to take a look today and the company that was listed in the import record (Shanghai Gaoyu Foam Products) is now listed on the CertiPur list under Glory Home Furnishings* (they weren’t listed the last time I checked a few months ago). Having said that they are listed for viscoelastic memory foam not gel memory foam or polyfoam which are separate categories.

ADMIN NOTE: *Removed 404 link|Archived Footprint: certipur.us/pages/find-a-foam-supplier/shanghai-glory-home-furnishings-co-ltd/

Of course this says nothing about the quality/density of the foam and I would want to know the density of all the layers in any mattress I purchased.

3. While I’m usually a research fanatic (to a fault at times), I pulled the trigger based on price and overall Amazon reviews and price (which was $479 OTD at the time I bought it). I also, however, do not like being misled or lied to, and with the circumstantial evidence I’ve now seen regarding their potential manufacturing processes, I’m wondering if that’s not the case. If so, God help them.

I think that one of the biggest difficulties with this type of research that leads to Chinese sources is that there are so many uncertainties involved and so many dots to connect together that it can be very difficult to find out accurate information that you can verify. In these cases the approach that I generally take is that I treat the high level of uncertainty itself and the lack of transparency as a risk factor which means that finding out reliable and trustworthy information (such as foam density) would become even more important.

Sometimes a member here will connect some dots that leads to a new trail (such as in this topic about a foam supplier that I was never able to find out where they sourced their polyfoam or memory foam) so if you do find out any additional information it would be great if you could post it here.

Phoenix