Select Foam says on their website that their memory foam is the “ONLY gel-eased soy blend memory foam on the planet”.
What exactly does this mean? And is this really true?
How is their soy foam different from anyone else’s soy foam? Especially that they say it’s the only one like this on the planet?
I understand from reading other posts that memory foam called “soy” actually has only a small percentage of soy. When I spoke with Peter at Select Foam he was vague about his answer to my question on the percentage of soy and basically made it sound like he didn’t know (if I am remembering correctly). I did not ask what they mean by the only “foam on the planet”.
The other interesting thing is that they did not want to share the name of the manufacturer of their foam, only said that they are located in Florida.
You can read a little more about “soy based” or “plant based” foam (memory foam or polyfoam) in post #2 here.
There are many foam manufacturers that supply variations of foam that replace some of the petrochemical polyols with polyols that are chemically derived from soy or other plant oils. In many cases the foam manufacturers don’t disclose the specific percentage of soy in their foams to the mattress manufacturers so this isn’t information that you would easily find … or really need in terms of quality/durability. It may have been true at some point that their foam manufacturer was the first to make gel memory foam that used soy polyol replacements but it wouldn’t be true any longer.
This is a very competitive industry and there are many manufacturers that don’t disclose the company where they buy their foams for legitimate competitive reasons. They may also decide to change suppliers from time to time depending on materials that become available, and the source of their foam would have little relevance to customers who in most cases have no personal experience with foams that are produced by specific foam manufacturers so it would make little difference to them. Their foams are made by an American foam manufacturer which is the biggest area of concern to most people.
I do agree however that their website needs some revisions because some of the information that may have been correct when it was added isn’t correct any longer. This is common in the industry where websites are often not completely up to date or include outdated information. In my research I find this is more the norm than the exception.
The basic information that you need is the type and density of the foam and whether the foam was produced in North America or is CertiPur certified, and of course knowledgeable salespeople who can give you good information when you talk with them. More than this in terms of foam specs and information wouldn’t really be relevant for most consumers.