Insatiable Chinese appetite for expensive handmade beds fuels expansion of Padstow company A.H. Beard

PADSTOW company A.H. Beard is custom making mattresses that sell for up to $92,000 to China. They have more than 20,000 springs, are hand stitched and they can tell you what farm the wool comes from.

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FOR China’s growing middle and upper classes, forking out $A92,000 for master bed maker Neville Middleton to construct somewhere to lay their head is a reality.

Mr Middleton and his small team spend their days at A.H. Beard’s Padstow factory custom-making mattresses to satisfy an insatiable appetite in the fourth-generation family company’s new overseas market.

“We are getting more work from China, it has picked up dramatically, it’s all top end stuff,” he said.

“The Chinese we are currently making beds for want all natural materials, like using merino sheep or alpaca wool inside.”

AH Beard chairman and managing director Garry Beard shows Chinese guests around the Padstow factory. Picture: Ben Symons

Chairman and managing director Garry Beard — who does not own his own hand made bed — said the difference in the custom mattresses compared to regular mattresses was like the difference between a $100,000 car and a Bentley.

“In reference to our top end, we are using the same hand made processes we used 50 years ago,” he said.

“One bed comes down the production line every minute as opposed to one of these that can take a day and a half to two and a half days.”

Mr Beard said up to ten people work on each bed and the company imported springs from the United Kingdom that were similar to those used in the seats of Rolls Royces and Bentleys — with a king size having about 1200 coils in the main support and 20,000 in the “comfort’ layers.

The beds are all hand stitched including hand tufting.

Those comfort layers have different layers of wool from sheep and alpacas as well as mohair and cotton.

There is no foam in the bed.

A.H. Beard have been making custom made beds for China for about seven years and in the last two years have been producing about one a week.

“The customers want us to identify what farm the wool comes from,” he said.

“We identify what farm the cotton comes from and the mohair, they are very much into the detail of where it come from,”

He said the most unusual request was for a 2.5m diameter round bed.

“The employees who make them are truly craftsmen,” he said.

“We have one of the guys, his father worked here for 43 years and started as a 15-year-old apprentice.

“Now the son has taken over the mantle.”

Workers in the manufacturing plant. Picture: Ben Symons

The price does not include a base but includes hand delivery to China with all the mattresses double bagged and put in a protective cover and a box — and the mattress must travel flat, it cannot stand up.

The Australian firm makes well-known brands such as King Koil and Nature’s Rest for major retailers like Harvey Norman and Domayne.

But since breaking into China in 2013, it has opened 34 branded shopfronts there through a partnership with Shanghai Green and has doubled its revenue every financial year.

It expects to have 100 Chinese stores by 2023.

A.H. Beard chief executive Tony Pearson puts that down to craftsmanship, particularly at the hands of the company’s four master bed makers, who each have more than 30 years’ experience.

“The Chinese consumer is probably more educated and motivated about the products they are purchasing and what they like is quality,” Mr Pearson said.

“Australia is seen as a great natural resource country and it’s also seen as a country which has very strong consumer laws where what we say is in the product is actually there.”

Master bedmaker Neville Middleton works on a mattress. Picture: Ben Symons

Last week, a busload of Shanghai Green franchisees toured the Padstow factory and eagerly lined up to watch.

Mr Middleton hand stitched a luxury bed and the guests had their photos taken with the 63-year-old, a celebrity in China.

His face appears on large advertising banners and he has drawn big crowds at expos.

Set up in 1899, A.H. Beard now employs 400 staff across Australia and New Zealand. Techniques and technology have changed and Mr Middleton, who has been a bed maker for 34 years, said the firm had transformed.

“It was vastly different to what it is now,’' he said.

‘‘When I started we used to make what we called a sausage-filled bed.

‘‘You used to put the material through a machine and make about 100 per day and wouldn’t make much money out of them. I’ve enjoyed the journey, it has been fascinating to see.”