Hi Coventry,
I talked with Chuck and then with John (the owner of Brooklyn Bedding) at length today so now I can make a few comments. Typical of some of my posts this will be a longer one because there are many moving parts to this discussion 
Sometimes incomplete or partial information or a more limited context or understanding about the factors involved or the pros and cons of various choices (either from a consumer viewpoint or a manufacturing viewpoint) can end up creating misleading assessments or assumptions. I think this may be one of those cases.
This isn’t quite as “black and white” as you may think it is.
The first thing I should mention is that the purpose of a review is to evaluate a mattress you purchased and this hasn’t changed. How people use a review is up to them but reading reviews is never a substitute for good research that looks at the details of all the layers of a mattress they are buying and compares it to what is available in the current market … not to what was available a year or two ago when prices of raw materials and the market itself was different. The "value"of a mattress is based on how it compares to what is currently available now and this is constantly changing. The best manufacturers who are transparent about their mattresses, take great care in their design, choose the highest quality materials available, and run on lower profit margins to provide them to people at great prices are the good guys … not the bad guys.
It’s not uncommon at all for even the best manufacturer to make changes to the specs of a mattress from cover materials to a foam. This is the reality of a changing market. It’s sad to me when a manufacturer that is completely transparent about what they make can sometimes become a “target of opportunity” and draw more scrutiny and even criticism than manufacturers that won’t provide any information at all about their mattresses and the changes they make are never known.
An example is Tempurpedic which has been recently removing any references to the specs of their mattresses from the internet (not just their own site) because they have changed the density of their base foam to 1.5 lb density as well and yet most of the market believes it is the same as it was. The difference is that they won’t even tell you what is in them if you ask and they are removing references to other quality information so that they can make any other changes they want without comment. Here you have just one example of something very similar and yet not a peep from consumers because they weren’t transparent in the first place so they don’t even know.
It’s somewhat ironic to me that the manufacturers that choose to run their business and disclose their specs and designs in the open can actually draw more criticism than the ones that don’t do any of this in the first place. In cases like this … it can be a real temptation for a manufacturer to just say “forget it” and join the rest of the industry rather than being criticized as a result of what could legitimately be called being “too transparent for their own good” or for the market they are involved in.
A little bit of information without the larger context can cause more harm to consumers than good, both now and in the future directions of the industry. If a manufacturer has no incentive to be transparent and it causes them harm when they do “in the open” what others do “in the dark” … then there is very little reason for them to provide this kind of information in the first place. It certainly won’t harm their sales when 95% of consumers don’t even care about specs anyway and only buy based on marketing information or on the approval of others. In effect this kind of criticism can push the best manufacturers away from transparency because price and material changes are a fact of life in the industry.
If there is to be real hope of educated consumers connecting with a growing group of transparent manufacturers then these kind of comments need to be made inside the context and with the understanding of the reality of the industry as it is … not as we may want it to be. Businesses need the freedom to make the changes and pursue the plans that allow them to both survive and thrive in an industry where the odds are already stacked against them. If they become “targets of opportunity” then the result is that they will have no incentive to continue to do what they are doing because there is no benefit to them to do so and it can even cause them harm. Don’t think that they don’t notice the irony of their circumstances and don’t struggle with deciding what is the “right thing to do” (at least the ones that care and Brooklyn Bedding is solidly in this camp).
There is even more yet though which has to do with the specific changes that they have made and how it fits into their plans that were started when they released their first Dreamfoam mattress on Amazon.
As you know from my previous post … their original plan (see the welcome post here was to use a material available to them at special prices for a limited time and to sell mattresses at lower margins to create a launch pad and a “special offer” to launch their brand. At this point they only had one mattress. Of course as the market changed and their plan evolved their original mattress became the entry level of a new lineup (actually two lineups which is their Amazon channel and their newer Brooklyn Bedding channel).
They are not able to use this material any longer in all their mattresses (their supply at special pricing was no longer available to them) so they needed to change either the price or the material. In addition to this, part of other ongoing business changes are that Amazon expressed an interest in their mattresses and is now fulfilling these “entry level mattresses” which means that they will be keeping a supply on hand which is compressed in their own warehouses for longer periods of time. The old foam is not as suitable for longer periods of compression as their new foam. This also leaves Brooklyn Bedding more free to continue to grow their brand and produce more high value mattress designs.
So on to some details about the specific 1.5 lb foam that they are now using as their base layer …
In this forum … quality is usually used in the context of durability and as you know higher density foams are more durable than lower density foams. Density is the primary although not the only factor in the durability of a foam. This is only part of the story however because as you know the density and quality of the materials in the upper layers of a mattress (not the support layer) are the weak link of most mattresses. Foam “quality” also has other definitions as well though and performance can also be used as a measure of quality (regardless of density or durability).
There is a grade of polyfoam called HR which has to be 2.5 lb density, have a compression modulus of 2.4 or higher, and a resilience of 60% or higher. These foams have much higher more “latex like” performance in terms of their response and feel. They are made in a different way using different chemicals and manufacturing methods than conventional foam to produce their properties. There are also high density conventional foams that are not HR (meaning they use conventional chemicals) that will also be more durable (as long as the increased density isn’t from fillers) but lack the improved performance and properties of HR foams.
There are also lower density foams which don’t meet the specs of HR foams in terms of density/durability but they do have higher performance properties (higher resilience, more responsive, higher compression modulus) similar to HR foams. While these are not actual HR foams … they are often called “high performance” or “high comfort” foams to differentiate them from more conventional foams. These are more costly and better quality than conventional foams (defined in performance rather than durability terms) even though their lower density also means they are less durable than higher density foams. In other words every foam density can have higher and lower performance versions and the performance is different between the classes of foam even though durability can be compared between classed by comparing their density (or more accurately their unfilled polymer density)
The density/durability of the base layer is not usually the weak link of a mattress but the performance of the base layers can be an important factor in how it feels. Of course with heavier weights that “go through” the top layers more, the density of a base layer can play a larger role in durability but this is still secondary to the top layers.
The new base layer is a higher performance but lower density foam that actually costs them about the same as their previous base layer and for most people … the increased performance of the new base layer is a good tradeoff and results in a mattress that has the same or even better performance and feel, similar durability, and continues to emphasize the quality of the materials in the upper layers that have the most effect on durability. They continue to be among the best quality and value available in the current market today. One other benefit of this lower density higher performance and more resilient material is that it can remain compressed for longer without damaging the foam to accommodate Amazon’s need to keep the mattresses compressed in their warehouse for longer periods of time than may be “'healthy” for a higher density but “stiffer” conventional foam.
All of this more detailed information is to provide some insights into the process involved in changes like this that is part of the daily life and decision process of every manufacturer. It also highlights the differences between how better quality manufacturers approach them with transparency, thought, and genuine integrity and concern for what they are providing to their customers vs the larger brands (that are immune from this type of criticism because they aren’t transparent in the first place) which just make decisions based on their bottom line and the profits of their shareholders or investors regardless of how it affects consumers which are “controlled” by their marketing not by the meaningful information they provide.
So It makes sense to me to include an understanding of the larger and more “complete” picture when you are looking to criticize the “good guys” who really do have the best long term interests of their customers and consumers as a whole at heart so that you don’t unknowingly drive them towards the side of the industry that all of us are hoping to change. A little bit of knowledge (either about the materials they are using or without a more complete context of the “inside” of the industry and the challenges and pressures that smaller manufacturers face) can be a dangerous thing and can cause more harm than good … unintended or not.
Would you choose to provide complete transparency to consumers if it resulted in becoming a “target of opportunity” based on partial information and caused you harm when you made necessary business choices that had the best interests of their customers in mind? What would you do if transparency prevented you from gaining the rewards of hard work, effort, and integrity that you deserved and if not being transparent was just as profitable and would shield you from the criticisms and potential loss of business that it brings? These are not big corporations … they are good people who struggle with difficult issues every day and maintain the integrity to do the right thing based on a complete picture that is far more challenging than most consumers realize.
As you know … consumers as a whole have little knowledge or even interest in knowing how to make better mattress choices because it’s “easier” to buy into marketing or have someone else tell them what to buy than to spend the time or do the work that legitimate research can involve. They are however heavily swayed by reviews which they often use to replace legitimate comparative research. Critical reviews, even if they have limited context or are based on incomplete information, can cause them to make decisions that may even be against their own best interests in the current market and can certainly cause harm to good companies.
In this “reality” of the market … wouldn’t it make more sense to just remove all specs and transparency from the process if “educated consumers” that only knew “part of the story” and had real influence were using pieces of information that they knew about to influence consumers against one of the most transparent manufacturers in the industry when these same customers could otherwise be purchasing one of the best value mattresses in the current market even though it’s not quite the same as it was in the past?
Don’t forget that most consumers don’t even really care about this type of detailed information (which hopefully this site is helping to change) but they will willingly follow someone’s opinion who seems to know what they are talking about because it’s “easier” than doing their own research based on what is available to them now.
The reason they continue to disclose as much as they do is because they have integrity and want consumers to know and be more informed. The good and sometimes the bad and the ugly is out in the open. This is part of who they (and other better manufacturers) are at heart. If this is used against them though and “pieces of a larger story” start to cause them harm … then any reasonable manufacturer would start to re-think their willingness to be transparent in the first place when the manufacturers that aren’t are continuing to dominate the market … with the “blessing” (and the money) of consumers that are looking for an easy way to make decisions that doesn’t involve their own time, effort, and independent research.
Just some food for thought
Phoenix