Trend, Household, and First-Class Requirements at Sunds Textiles » BedTimes Journal
At a Look
Firm Sunds Textiles A/S
Headquarters Sunds, Central Denmark Area, Denmark
Manufacturing amenities Mexico, Poland, and Ukraine
Processes Knitting, ending, printing, lamination, cut-and-sew, quilting, printing, embroidery
Specialty Stretch mattress ticking and covers. Vertical manufacturing setup in every facility
Historical past Based in 1968
Possession Owned 100% by the Vang Nielsen household, with Claus Vang Nielsen at present the bulk shareholder
Study extra sunds.com
Producing a customized mattress cowl could be a difficult and time-consuming course of. At Sunds Textiles, it begins within the firm showroom, devoted to not completed merchandise however to materials and inspiration.
“What we’re providing is our experience, our information, and our gear, and the way to convert that right into a product that the shopper can work with,” says Space Gross sales Supervisor Bo Vang. “We pay attention so much. We ask a number of questions, and after that we attempt to slim down slightly bit right into a product or path that might work for the shopper.”
Sunds Textiles A/S started in style however is now grounded within the sleep business. Spanning the Atlantic Ocean with its vertical manufacturing amenities, Sunds Textiles makes a speciality of stretch mattress ticking and covers, competing within the European and North American markets by high quality, customization, and the agility to navigate altering circumstances.
“Sunds Textiles was initially a knitting firm supplying textiles for the European style business,” says CEO and Managing Director Claus Vang Nielsen. “Expansions in Poland, Ukraine, and Mexico have over time remodeled the corporate to a global participant with full concentrate on the mattress business.”
A modern begin
The origin of Sunds Textiles dates to 1968. Within the central Denmark village of Sunds, Vang Nielsen’s father based a by-product from one other household firm referred to as Vangárd Sportswear. From a couple of circular-knitting machines, manufacturing started to develop, and a dyehouse was added in 1975 for in-house cloth ending. In 1990, the corporate started producing ready-made clothes with the institution of a cut-and-sew manufacturing unit in Poland.
In 2001, the corporate, identified by then as Sunds Velour, made a significant step with acquisition of a facility in Ukraine.
By the millennium, world style manufacturing had largely relocated to Asia, and Sunds began shifting manufacturing from velour to double jersey textiles—the popular cloth of the mattress business.
A reputation change to Sunds Textiles in 2011 mirrored a strategic shift, as most manufacturing transitioned from style to bedding. The corporate leveraged its cut-and-sew experience in style and sports activities textiles to pioneer pre-sewn mattress covers.
“There are fairly a couple of ticking producers who can provide a mattress cowl, however not many have the dedication, expertise, and capability to transform most of their cloth output into covers,” says Vang Nielsen.
Right now, Sunds Textiles primarily produces ready-to-zip mattress and pillow covers. From 4,000 to six,000 mattress covers and 15,000 to 30,000 pillow covers are produced each day. About 150 state-of-the-art round knitting machines in a variety of diameters and settings, together with eight to 10 machines added in 2025, produce high-quality knitted materials, together with double-knit jacquard ticking, velour, and different single- and double-jersey materials.
Ending traces—now as much as six, for the reason that addition of a brand new one in 2025—carry out washing, bleaching, dyeing, printing, and padding. In-house lower, quilt, and stitch capabilities produce mattress covers, overlay pads, and pillows.
Sunds Textiles started supplying mattress covers to the US in 2006, and at this time, the U.S. market accounts for about half of turnover. As that phase blossomed, the corporate constructed a plant from the bottom up in Mexico, going absolutely operational in Guadalajara in 2022.
Whereas the 550,000-square-foot Ukraine plant is the corporate’s largest, the Mexico facility—now at 250,000 sq. toes—is “rising quick” to proceed assembly demand, says Vang Nielsen.
Sparking inspiration
Now in its third era, Sunds Textiles stays a 100% family-owned enterprise. Vang Nielsen started his profession within the household textile dyehouse in Denmark earlier than coming into garment manufacturing in Poland. He served style clients all through Europe earlier than beginning manufacturing in Ukraine in 2003 and main the later addition in Mexico.
Bo Vang, Claus Vang Nielsen’s cousin, labored in a German mattress retailer and in sportswear earlier than becoming a member of Sunds Textiles in 2022.
The Sunds Textiles customization method “begins with cloth,” says Vang Nielsen. The corporate creates greater than 300 new materials a yr, provides Vang. In a market the place newly created textiles are uncommon, “that’s so much,” he notes, however selection is the important thing to sparking the creativeness of shoppers who don’t all the time have a transparent idea of what they need.
“We develop so much to create inspiration for the shoppers,” Vang says. “They might suppose this small dot we developed can be good along with this type of knitting building, mixed with this ending on the material, and it might be good if it may have this particular contact to it.”
Sunds Textiles takes critically its obligation to assist mattress manufacturers design and develop “the face of their mattress,” says Vang Nielsen. A breadth of sources, provides, and ending methods allows customization and permits Sunds Textiles to empower each shopper to distinguish. Whether or not they select to compete on value, consolation, cooling, sustainability, or different components, the groups at Sunds Textiles design and make a product that accommodates clients’ distinctive specs.
With its vertical manufacturing amenities, Sunds Textiles makes about 85% of the materials for its covers internally. The remaining supplies and elements, together with all yarns, are sourced from suppliers worldwide. These yarns are procured from producers making colours and formulations for regardless of the market and shoppers require.
“There are lots of of prospects in yarns,” Vang Nielsen says. “We favor to be versatile to have the ability to purchase nylon from Vietnam in addition to cotton from Peru, as a result of we don’t know what might be in style subsequent yr. We like the pliability to supply the client something that is sensible.”
With its array of extremely specialised and various gear, Sunds Textiles additionally works with all fibers—pure, artifical, or recycled. “We’re always looking out for brand new, revolutionary merchandise that might be documented to positively influence sleep high quality or atmosphere,” Vang Nielsen says.
As a quiet firm that prefers to let shoppers take the highlight, Sunds doesn’t share its clients or tasks, nevertheless it has labored with—and embroidered or printed the names of—acknowledged gamers on its covers. They embrace Nectar, Purple, Sealy, Tempur-Pedic, Awara, Casper, Dunlopillo, Nora, and DreamCloud.
“If you recognize what to search for, you will discover our merchandise in all varieties of shops, together with Mattress Agency, Amazon, Costco, and plenty of extra,” says Vang Nielsen, including {that a} “Made in Ukraine” label is one telltale signal of a Sunds Textiles product.
Logistically, it is sensible for Sunds Textiles to produce the U.S. East Coast from Europe and the West Coast from Mexico. Third-party contractors dealing with logistics present the pliability to determine provide chains and warehousing wherever in the US—at present in South Carolina and New Mexico, supported by inner warehouses in Denmark and Mexico.
As just-in-time supply from Asia wanes in reputation, Sunds Textiles is leveraging supplier-managed stock to assist propel development, Vang Nielsen says. That locations merchandise within the neighborhood of consumers for responsive supply.
“Our risk to be nearer to our clients means telling them they don’t have to attend three months for a container to reach,” he says. “Inform us what you suppose you will want, and we’ll put in a warehouse inside the US so we are able to provide you inside 24 hours.”
‘Open to concepts’
The corporate tradition is dedicated to openness and shared contributions. With a considerably flat hierarchy, solely 30 of Sunds Textiles’ 1,000 staff work in Denmark. In all manufacturing amenities and at headquarters, staff are inspired to stability private duty with teamwork. Regardless of totally different nationwide cultures, manufacturing staff know that they will share their concepts and considerations with administration visiting from Denmark.
“The tradition is basically that I’m open to concepts from anybody,” Vang Nielsen says. “I don’t care the place they got here from within the group, and the identical goes for the remainder of the 30 folks within the headquarters.”
And, he added, “we perceive that we aren’t any stronger than the weakest hyperlink in our operation. Thus, we goal to interact everybody within the steady technique of figuring out potential dangers, bottlenecks, and alternatives. This clearly implies that we’ve got an excessive amount of respect for all our staff and take the duty to deal with them accordingly.”
With manufacturing on two continents, sustaining constant high quality comes from consideration to element, executives touring amongst amenities, and copycat gear fleets.
“Principally, we management the headlines from Denmark,” says Vang Nielsen. “The uncooked supplies, the yarns are precisely the identical, so we are able to work in a number of methods to verify we’ve got the identical product.”
The Sunds Textiles Ukraine facility has not misplaced a day of manufacturing for the reason that Russia-Ukraine conflict began in 2022. Situated in western Ukraine, close to the Polish border, it has been undisturbed by Russian incursions within the east. However each household in Ukraine has been affected by the conflict, “and sadly, lots of them in devastating methods,” says
Vang Nielsen.
On this environment, Ukrainian staff usually plead with firm officers to “simply preserve the manufacturing unit operating,” or they are saying, “We want some normality in our lives, and it helps [to] have the ability to go to work day by day.”
“We do our greatest to adjust to this humble request, however [since] cut-and-sew operations are extremely labor-intensive processes, and as we do have differences due to the season in addition to market considerations, cut-and-sew capability is sadly not a continuing,” Vang Nielsen says. “Thus, we discover ourselves always both constructing capability or having to scale back. We’re not the heroes right here, however we do in fact have interaction with the local people and authorities to attempt to assist the place we are able to.”
Managing different pockets of geopolitical uncertainty additionally calls for a nimble method. Your complete business is ready for some certainty regarding tariffs, Vang Nielsen says, which may arrive with negotiations to finish the Russia-Ukraine conflict and thru overview of the United States-Mexico-Canada Settlement. Regardless of the outcomes, Sunds Textiles’ two-continent method creates “the chance to maneuver product backwards and forwards, in response to no matter is sensible.”
The corporate intends to proceed investing in equipment enterprisewide and hopes to broaden in Guadalajara, “though we are going to most likely maintain the playing cards longer earlier than we determine the way to play them,” Vang Nielsen says. Investments in photo voltaic panels in Ukraine in 2025 helped present a dependable power supply, and the corporate continues to replace and complement its Ukrainian equipment “to verify the whole lot stays top-notch and prepared for added enterprise.”
Whereas clients categorical satisfaction with Sunds Textiles’ logistics, the opportunity of establishing a U.S. footprint stays seemingly, however any particulars “have but to be determined,” says Vang Nielsen.
Excessive requirements
In Vang’s time working inside the household firm, he says he has been astonished by its dedication to high quality and excessive requirements, together with its meticulous methods within the knitting division. “I see that after I get out out there,” he says.
“The standard we provide may be very excessive. It’s good to be there, presenting one thing you may be happy with.”
Balancing that high quality with value is made doable by Sunds Textiles’ dedication to listening, since at instances clients need assistance deciding what they need. “We’ve got to pay attention so much and ask questions and make a number of trials,” says Vang.
High quality can be a part of a tradition of engagement that instills vigilance amongst each workforce member, Vang Nielsen notes. “In case you see a mistake in manufacturing, the best factor is to show a blind eye as a substitute of going to the boss,” he says. “It takes a number of instructing earlier than anyone understands that also they are a part of making a top quality product.”
The Sunds Textiles workforce works “behind the product” to guarantee shoppers the suitable product on the proper value and proper high quality, whereas it additionally meets excessive business requirements, says Vang. Certifications embrace Oeko-Tex® STeP (Sustainable Textile and Leather-based Manufacturing) and Oeko-Tex® Commonplace 100 for textile security. “Our shoppers rely [on the fact] that we’ve got achieved our homework, that means that we’re certain that our merchandise are updated with requirements out there,” he says.
Wanting into the long run, Vang Nielsen hopes for peace for the Ukrainian employees, in addition to “a extra peaceable world, so we are able to construct this right into a stronger firm and have two equally robust provide bases in Ukraine and Mexico.”
He quotes an car business maxim to sum up how Sunds Textiles thinks about staff and clients: “Coming collectively is a starting. Conserving collectively is progress. Working collectively is success.”
“If we attempt to do the whole lot and serve everybody, we are going to fail our mission, so we will need to have the braveness to say no if we don’t really feel that we’re the suitable match,” he says. “We like to grasp how we are able to make a distinction. We will’t be the whole lot to everybody, however we may be one thing to somebody—even a number of someones.”
In a way, the Vang Nielsen household tree extends into Mexico, says Claus Vang Nielsen. He frolicked as a trainee in a Guadalajara, Mexico, sportswear firm “approach again within the ’80s” and has maintained relations with the proprietor and host household, the Prietos, ever since.
When planning for a Sunds Textiles Mexico enterprise started in 2019, Vang Nielsen already had the connections, and the new-build plant in a Guadalajara industrial park went absolutely operational in 2022. “The placement of the Mexico plant is not any coincidence, and some members of the Prieto household are at this time associates of the Sunds Textiles Group,” Vang Nielsen says.
