Kickstart: Uneasy sleep

The U.S. mattress business isn't necessarily going through a nightmare scenario right now, but the companies likely aren't having sweet dreams.

In 2020 and 2021, as American consumers spent money on staycations and home improvements — including money spent on new beds — both traditional mattress makers and bed-in-box companies that delivered directly to consumers were expanding.

In 2022, with consumers pulling back spending due to inflation and recession concerns, business is slowing.

Tempur Sealy International, based in Lexington, Ky., saw sales hit $1.21 billion in its most recent fiscal quarter, but its EBITDA numbers fell 24.8 percent vs. the same period in 2021.

"We believe the overall U.S. mattress business, our largest market, had its toughest volume decline in 15 years," Tempur Sealy Chairman and CEO Scott Thompson said.

Utah-based Purple Innovation Inc. saw its net revenue fall 21.1 percent vs. the second quarter of 2021, but executives at Purple remained optimistic.

A new plant near Atlanta that opened in August 2021 may have had a shaky start, CEO Rob DeMartini said during a conference call, but is shaping up to be "a great productive asset."

When the Italian materials firm Sirmax SpA announced it would expand to Anderson, Ind., it said the move was so it could locate itself closer to customers in the region, especially those in the auto and appliance industries.

Now a national group has honored Sirmax for its work in Anderson, where it adapted a shuttered auto lighting plant for its U.S. operations.

Sirmax received the 2022 RACER's Edge Award for Foreign Direct Investment, in recognition of its successful redevelopment and reuse of the former Delphi facility. RACER, the Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust, was formed in 2011 to oversee properties vacated by General Motors Co. in its 2009 bankruptcy, including the Indiana site that was once part of its parts division.

Sirmax, based in Cittadella, Italy, invested more than $35 million to build and expand a 144,000-square-foot compound and resin manufacturing facility in Anderson. It has since also expanded its operations and added recycling operations.

Any discussion involving sustainability and plastic water bottles seems to, at some point, come around to Fiji Water and whether it makes sense to ship water from a remote Pacific Ocean island nation to customers in, say, Miami.

The company maintains that it helps to finance access to water, conservation projects, schools and other programs in Fiji thanks to water shipped from the island.

Can a change in packaging help its carbon footprint? (I remain skeptical.)

On Aug. 15, Fiji Water — owned by The Wonderful Co. — announced it has transitioned its 500-milliliter and 330-milliliter bottles in the U.S. to 100 percent recycled PET. The switch means that almost 65 percent of the company's bottle volume in the U.S. uses recycled material. The rest of its bottle sizes will convert to recycled PET by 2025.