Supplying  cotton for futons

"We were supplying several people who were making them (futon mattresses) in their back rooms. We actually started by supplying companies from our cotton division," said Wolf. "I attended my first futon show in 1991, in Washington, DC. We had heard about the Montréal show but didn't make it to that one. We were there to see if we could sell more cotton to futon mattress manufacturers," he said. What they saw in DC were many people who were beginning to move towards futon furniture from a then seriously shrinking waterbed industry. "I was fascinated by the people who were at that DC show," said Wolf, "Lots of them were waterbed retailers who were sliding from 'waterbed only' to other retail variations like specialty sleep shops and lifestyle furniture stores. They were now selling futons and other types of bedding too." Wolf had been in the waterbed business, as a major supplier of covers and soft side components during the seventies and eighties, and he saw a similar transformation happening to his own company.

"The following year (1992) in Houston we saw some of our customers writing orders that we couldn't believe. Things were really starting to heat up and that's when we began to consider doing more than just selling cotton fiber," he said. It was the following year (1993) in San Diego that Wolf took his first futon mattress to market. "When we walked on the show floor in San Diego we knew things were looking up. By then the hints of transition in the waterbed industry that we had seen in DC were a reality, and with a growing sense that the furniture industry was beating a track to our door we went home from San Diego convinced that the category was about to come on and do big things," said Wolf.

"We came back from that show and really got serious about it," he said. The following year saw a major futon mattress manufacturer end production with much of that business heading towards Wolf Corporation. "We went from nothing to futon mattresses being thirty percent of our business in eighteen months," he said. Wolf then relaxed a little and commented several times about long hours and the amazing volume of those intense months. "Let's face it, two very fortunate situations converged for us. We were blessed to be in an industry that was blasting off like a rocket ship and at the same time we had every necessary component to manufacture this product sitting on our factory floor.

You've heard that old saying 'I've been good, I've been lucky, I'll take luck every time.' We were very lucky to be in the position we were in," he said. Unlike almost every other futon mattress manufacturer out there Wolf Corporation garnetts cotton batting in-house for the bedding and upholstered furniture industries, and has been doing so for over a century. "We were then, and still are now in the cotton garnetting business," said Wolf. "One of the top two or three producers in the country," he added. At least half of their 110,000 square foot plant is dedicated to this facet of the business. Wolf is very proud of his garnetting operation. "This whole plant is designed to do one thing. We can consistently produce any size or weight cotton layers or blended fiber batt year in and year out. Add to that our 100 years of experience in buying and blending technology and you get a know-how unsurpassed anywhere in the industry," he said.

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