Eco-chic interior designer Sarah Barnard will moderate a panel on the value of consumer disclosure labeling in specialty sleep at Las Vegas Furniture Market.
"What's in Your Mattress," created to raise awareness for how using “truth in marketing” of sleep products can help to grow sales among specific groups of consumers, is set for Monday, Jan. 28, 4-5 p.m., in space C176 of the World Market Center; and is sponsored by the Specialty Sleep Association. The event is open to all market attendees.
Barnard, of Sarah Barnard Design in Santa Monica, Calif., is recognized by the International Institute for Bau-Biologie & Ecology as a Building Biology Practitioner and by the United States Green Building Council as a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Accredited Professional. She serves on the Santa Monica Conservancy’s board of directors and specializes in green interior design and historic preservation.
Panel participants will include Chris Chamberlain, cofounder of The Clean Bedroom, a leading organic bedding retailer with stores in Maine, California, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and New York; Barry Cik, founder of Naturepedic, an organic bedding manufacturer with an active product labeling program; and a Las Vegas consumer who places a high value on transparent communications when deciding which products to purchase for her home.
The panel will discuss how identifying “what’s in a mattress” can be a powerful selling tool for retailers. The group also will provide tips on how stores in the specialty sleep arena can prepare for the emerging product labeling trend.
“Purchasing safe and environmentally friendly products for the home is a growing priority for many consumers, especially for mothers of young children,” said SSA President Dale Read. “With the SSA’s Environmental & Safety Program, we’ve done the leg work for the manufacturer and the retailer.”
The SSA program currently has three levels of bedding product seals that build upon each other with increasingly demanding levels of requirements. The seals, plus a required SSA Consumer Disclosure Label, appear on mattresses from manufacturers who comply with requirements of the program and serve to inform the consumer about the minimum environmental and compliance levels to which a manufacturer claims its particular products adhere.
