“The last mattress you ever buy”

New offering another way franchisee can tap into $29B global market

Longtime business owner Dick Sumerfield is hoping Boulderites will give his new mattress a lift.

Boulder is a health-conscious community and residents put a high priority on getting a good night’s sleep to enhance their daily lives, said Sumerfield, who has owned Verlo Mattress for about 30 years. In addition to a Boulder location, he has a factory showroom in Longmont and a store in Arvada.

He recently introduced Sleepiphany, a patentpending mattress that allows user to shuffle five pairs of fabric-encased foam layers of different densities for customized comfort on either side.

It’s a unique product not offered by anyone else and is expected to be a gamechanger in the multi-billion-dollar sleep products industry, Sumerfield said.

“Sleepiphany could be the last mattress you ever buy. Consumers will want it because of the adjustability of it,” he said.

Verlo, based in Wisconsin, allows franchisees to make and their sell their own mattresses. But the Sleepiphany system, which took more than two years to develop, is being made in the Midwestern state, Sumerfield said.

He plans to make it in his Longmont factory in the future. The company’s philosophy is to produce and sell locally to keep prices affordable and reduce its carbon footprint, Sumerfield said.

A 2016 study by the Better Sleep Council, the consumer education arm of the International Sleep Products Association, found that about 85 percent of consumers rated a good night’s sleep as the key factor for health and well-being.

Insufficient sleep can be a result of lifestyle and occupational factors, or some medical conditions, but research suggests there is a correlation between the quality of a mattress and the quality of one’s sleep, said Mary Helen Rogers, vice president of communication, International Sleep Products Association in Alexandria, Va.

Consumers tend to keep a mattress for 8.9 years on average, she said.