Animal product origin and guarantee of ethical standards?

Hi James,

Many thanks for your question. We take great care in sourcing both ethical and high-quality fibres for our mattresses. Animal cruelty is abhorrent and we totally agree with your stance on the ethical human treatment of all animals.

We got in touch with our fibre supplier(s) to ask them to contribute to this answer so we could provide as much detail for you as possible. They take their role as fibre merchants really serious, visiting the locations of their fibre sources and ensuring the highest animal welfare standards.

Wool: We only buy wool from countries with long-established and significant controls in place for animal well being such as UK, EU and New Zealand. The wool is collected from sheared sheep which is part of their yearly coat maintenance. We always try and source things as locally as we can such as our Legacy which features UK bred and reared fibres from animals which are looked after to the highest standards and certificated by the British wool board.

horsehair / Horsetail: This is an end of life product from sporting or domestic horses. Never those bred for meat in certain countries. The horsetail/hair we use has never been bred just for hair or tail. That's why it is so expensive as it is not factory farmed but in very limited supply. Our horsehair/tail comes mainly from European or South American origins where our suppliers have incredibly strict regulation and control of the animal in life and in death. In fact, we would not be able to import the hair via our fibre merchant without the animal and the hair having a veterinary certificate signed at source. We have listed even more details on our horsehair page here.

Your options in terms of a mattress choice depend on your feelings towards the fibres origin. You can stick with entirely synthetic such as the Origins Reflex or choose a model that contains wool such as the Artisan Naturals or if you're happy with Horsetail then the Artisan Bespoke. Failing that you could also look at a latex option which is entirely plant-based.

We hope that answer helps, we know a lot of bed and mattress retailers won't discuss this subject matter at all. However, as conscientious manufacturers, we take every effort we can to ensure we choose the highest standards across the board when making our mattresses.

Please let us know if we can be of any more help.

All the best