Cover Story The Evolution Of Blu Sleep By Gretchen Kast
Never a brand to stick with the status quo, Blu Sleep has always stood out from the crowd with brightly colored pillows, wellness-oriented innovations and manufacturing ingenuity. Today, its ever-expanding product portfolio includes an assortment of all-foam pillows and mattresses that provide retailers with higher margins and eye-catching selling opportunities. With the debut of its fresh new brand identity and of-the-moment packaging, Blu Sleep has reinvented itself as a bedding producer of the future.
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ounded in 2006, Blu Sleep first got its start as a supplier for mattress makers. After three years of supplying the in-
dustry with latex foam components, the com- pany was struck by how little attention was being paid to the pillow category. Armed with its specialized expertise, Blu Sleep turned its attention towards developing finished pillow offerings for small manufacturers and retail- ers. First finding success with private labeling in the Canadian market, Blu Sleep soon ex- panded its distribution to retailers in the Unit- ed States as well, where it began selling the products under its own brand name. Today, Blu Sleep still has a Canadian divi- sion that sells raw materials to manufacturers, but its presence in the US is primarily focused on finished Blu Sleep products. “It was an evolution for us,” Ciccolella explains. “We un- derstand what manufacturers are doing, and we understand what retailers are requesting as well. We see both sides of the fence: we are manufacturers and supply manufacturers.” As the company continued to grow its dis- tribution, it sought out Italian foam suppliers to help develop new foams. A bio-chemist himself, company president Alex Ciccolella was able to work closely with suppliers to create and fine-tune the innovative formula- tions to better suit the needs of each product.
“We’re not just a reseller,” he continues. “We don’t just go to China and say, ‘What do you have?’ and then market it. We actually do our re- search before we put something on the market. We put new things together and test it and try it first. We try to bring together the most inno- vative products we can find, whether it’s in the fabrics or the foams and even zippers. And if we can’t find it, we modify things or have it done for us. It’s all about bringing the best materials together to come up with Blu Sleep products.” This expertise allows the company to care- fully construct all of its product offerings to an exact feel through exclusive features and innovative materials. Every Blu Sleep product is made with water-expanded foams. Utilizing water as an expansion agent helps to elimi- nate harmful chemicals, making for cleaner, more environmentally-conscious foams. All of Blu Sleep’s memory foam, latex and gels are OEKO-Tex certified, which guarantees that there is no off-gassing produced in the pro- cess. Additionally, the foams feature an open- cell structure, which renders them non-tem- perature-sensitive—meaning they won’t heat up during the night. The quality of these mate- rials is what made the company stand out from the very beginning. In fact, Blu Sleep was one of the first to focus on and promote breathabil- ity as a key benefit.
Understanding that pillows make up 25%
of the total sleep surface, Blu Sleep set out to create a pillow line that would actively en- hance sleep quality. Over the years, the com- pany has curated a comprehensive pillow assortment that supports every type of sleep- er. Each pillow option has been dynamically designed to adapt to the curves of the head and neck, made from supremely comfortable, temperature-neutral materials. “Our extended line of sleep accessories will give retailers the opportunity to tap into those all-important add-on sales,” explains Elizabeth Dell’Accio, vice president of Blu Sleep. “Consumers are weary of visiting mul- tiple stores to outfit a new bedroom. These additions to the Blu Sleep line help retailers offer one-stop shopping convenience.” In addition to its popular Nature, Wellness and Latex pillow lines, the company recently introduced the new Essential Collection. Like all of Blu Sleep’s products, this five-pillow as- sortment is made from water-expanded mem- ory foam. What truly differentiates this line-up from the rest is that each pillow is infused with an essential oil—including chamomile, lavender, citrus, green tea or eucalyptus. Instead of sim- ply spraying these essential oils onto the final product, Blu Sleep has actually infused them into the chemistry of the foams to maintain their
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