David Perry -- Furniture Today, April 3, 2011

AT THE MARKET - Mattress producers showing here say they have raised prices or are considering price hikes as they respond to rising raw material costs.

"We are anticipating that the bedding industry will see inflation on material costs during 2011 similar to other industries," said Jodi Allen, chief marketing officer at Sealy. "The bedding industry will be forced to deal with these higher costs and at this stage, a price increase has to be part of the consideration."

Gold Bond President Bob Naboicheck says the industry is in a time of turbulence. The cause, he says, is that "we're in the highest inflationary period for raw materials our industry has seen in decades."

"We are seeing price increases on most all fronts," said Kurt Ling, CEO of a supplier of latex beds. "All increases are significant with some extraordinary. The largest price increases we are seeing are the price of latex (natural formulation and even more so the all natural formulation) and freight. Some are as much as 20%, where other materials are up more in the 7% range."