Maruhachi never sleeps in quest for better futons

The Japanese tradition of sleeping on futons dates back long before their comfort became known in other parts of the world, and endures even after the influx of Western culture led many people to prefer sleeping on a bed.

The popularity of futons has contributed to the success of Maruhachi, one of the leading manufacturers in the industry.

Maruhachi got its start in 1962 as part of the bedding section of a textile manufacturer in Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture. The city and its surrounding districts were a hub for textile companies at the time, when the country had started to rise from wartime disruption and there were signs of an economic boom.

Maruhachi’s mission has been to provide people with an environment that can help them sleep well, under the corporate credo of “pursuit of the real cotton,” though modern bedding may also be filled with down and other materials.

“Futons used to be something that mothers and grandmothers sewed for family members,” said Noriyuki Okamoto, the CEO of Maruhachi Holdings Co., in a recent interview, part of a monthly series by Naonori Kimura, a partner for the consulting firm Industrial Growth Platform Inc.

“But when we started our business, at first selling from trucks or cars in rural areas, mothers or fathers were no longer able to make futons at home. That is how it became our business model.”

Maruhachi gradually gained fame as a maker of down quilts in an era when both shikibuton mattresses and kakebuton quilts were usually made of cotton or artificial fibers such as polyester and many people had not even heard about down-filled futons yet.

“We define selling futons as cultivating ‘potential consumer demand,’” Okamoto said, as opposed to devices like smartphones and PCs, which are “tangible-demand products.”

“There is demand out there,” Okamoto continued. He said that on average people use a futon for seven years and eight months, during which time the filling grows less sanitary due to sweat and the futon needs to be cleaned. “People don’t know about this unless professionals explain to them,” he said, adding that the brand may not be able to handle cleaning for some futons sold through online shopping malls depending on the materials, but does clean those that are compatible. “We explain to customers about all these things and help them realize the products’ value. If you handle tangible-demand products, you have to face price competition.”

Why are futons still widely favored in Japan, even when Western-style beds have become the norm? Due to the limited space available in their houses, people conventionally sleep on tatami mats or the floor, and after getting up fold the futons and put them away in a closet. Even the many people who prefer beds still use a kakebuton cover because of their comfort. According to Maruhachi, their high-class down-filled futons are especially popular through direct sales.

This steady popularity has supported the company’s earnings, although the impact of the weaker yen as well as the rising costs of raw materials and transportation have weighed on its profits in recent years. In the business year that ended in March, it logged a group net profit of ¥2.38 billion ($16.7 million), up 2.4% from the previous year, on sales of ¥11.89 billion.

Maruhachi imports down from Hungary, Poland, China, the United States and Canada, and wool and sheepskin from France, Australia and New Zealand. Its main factory for sewing futon covers is currently in Laos, while quilted futons are filled with down and other materials at a factory in Shizuoka, where another two facilities conduct quality checks, cleaning and recycling.

Although its financial performance has been fairly stable, it has a risk factor: a shortage of labor for direct sales. Door-to-door sales account for half of Maruhachi’s futon sales but it is now having trouble attracting enough candidates, Okamoto said.

Maruhachi has recently widened its customer base to commercial customers such as hotels and ryokan inns, in order to not depend too much on individual customers. Ryokans in particular tend to value high-quality bedding. “One idea is to make it possible for guests to pay for down quilts if they want them,” Okamoto said.

As part of its policies on sustainability, Maruhachi focuses on cleaning, renovating and recycling futons.

At its “Maruhachi futon clinic,” the company annually deep-cleans about 160,000 futons, with the details depending on whether they contain down, cotton, wool or other materials.

As for renovations, workers check and wash the down inside the quilts and replace any deteriorating fillings with new ones.

In the recycling system, the company collects used cotton or synthetic futons and makes them into solid pellets to burn in boilers to keep greenhouses warm enough to grow melons, a specialty in the Shizuoka city of Fukuroi.

Referring to the Maruhachi group’s strategies in the coming years, Okamoto pointed out the importance of online services, including a kind of web concierge for those who need information about products. “We will need to further focus on internet-related services. It will be more and more important to integrate them with what we have in our organization, the face-to-face sales staff,” Okamoto said.

Another possible plan is to help with the sleeping experiences of guests at hotels and ryokans, creating something like a showcase for high-quality sleeping gear. Guests who like their Maruhachi futons may well then buy some for themselves.

“Once people get used to better sleeping gear, they may find the previous one less comfortable,” Okamoto said. “In that way, the items you use for sleeping will improve in quality.”