Now entering its 126th year, A.H. Beard is focused on the future, while building on successes of the past.
Family-owned, independent premium bedding producer and sleep expert A.H. Beard ended 2024 on a high note. As part of a celebration of the company’s 125th anniversary, Chair Garry Beard and Director Allyn Beard wrapped up the year traveling to all seven of the company’s factories across Australia and New Zealand — and those plants were hopping.
“Black Friday was extremely strong for us, and I hope it is indicative of a return to normal trading conditions. All of our factories are on max overtime and working six days a week,” Allyn Beard said in late December. It was a nice bump heading into January, which Beard says is typically one of the company’s strongest months for sales.
That end-of-year bump is helping the Beards to feel optimistic about 2025 and the company’s 126th year in business. The bedding producer, based in Padstow, Australia, has plans for global growth; investment in a new production facility in Christchurch, New Zealand; and the rollout of a new bedding collection.
The A.H. Beard Story: 125 Years of Innovation
Enoch William Beard founded what was then called the Australian Bedding Mill in 1899, producing handmade straw and tufted horsehair mattresses. But in 1926, the factory burned to the ground, “leaving Enoch ruined,” as a webpage with the company history explains. His son, Albert Beard, decided to rebuild. The company, renamed A.H. Beard, grew for decades through manufacturing and component innovations and, in 1970, signed a licensing deal to bring the King Koil brand to Australian consumers. In the 1990s, fourth-generation company leaders and brothers Allyn Beard and Garry Beard embarked on a journey of domestic and international expansion, purchasing Suparest Bedding and Domino in the late 1990s, and adding SleepHaven Bedding in 2008.
Today, the company has more than 450 employees and produces as many as 10,000 mattresses a week.
Allyn Beard attributes the company’s success and longevity firstly to “a lot of luck.” “However, a big part of that is good luck in attracting a great team of people who really are what make A.H. Beard what it is — and their dedication and commitment through the many ups and downs our business has faced,” he says.
Beyond Australia and New Zealand, the company’s markets include China, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Thailand. Its products are available in the United States through a licensing deal with Paramount Sleep Co.
“Many people are surprised to hear how successful we have become in exporting mattresses to China and Hong Kong,” Beard says. “As you know, beds are quite bulky, plus there are literally thousands of mattress manufacturers in China, so people are always curious as to how we have been able to export thousands of mattresses each year to China and Hong Kong. Fortunately, their high-end customers have a desire to buy a high-quality handmade product that provides superior comfort and support to what is produced locally.”
In the coming year, Beard says, “We are anticipating growth in both licensing and products made in Australia and exported to customers across China and Hong Kong. We have recently licensed our A.H. Beard brand to Apolospuma in Brazil, plus we are in advanced discussions with potential licensees in Europe and South America.”
A.H. Beard is also opening a new facility in Christchurch. “As many would know, New Zealand is made up of two main islands. Our current factory is in Auckland (on the North Island) and it is quite expensive to transport mattresses and bases to the South Island,” Beard says. “We are only starting out quite small, but then we intend to gradually increase the size and volumes, as skills improve, so that we can maintain our current standards of quality yet reduce both lead times and freight costs.”
The company’s mattresses are available through more than 2,000 retailers. Last year, A.H. Beard earned Canstar Blue’s 2024 Most Satisfied Customers Award for mattresses.
Family Values Fueling 125 Years of Success
Founded as a family business, A.H. Beard remains so. In 1999, it earned the inaugural Australian Family Business of the Year Award and in 2012 was inducted into Family Business Australia’s Hall of Fame. In 2022, it was honored in Family Business Australia’s Family Business Excellence Awards for the large business category in New South Wales.
Fourth-generation leaders include Allyn Beard, Garry Beard and their sisters, Christine Beard and Lexie Bugden. Five members of the fifth generation of the family also work in various roles in the company. Allyn Beard notes that at the company’s 125th anniversary celebration at its facility in Sydney, many preschool and school-aged sixth-generation family members attended.
“We considered having a big gala dinner to celebrate our 125th, like what we did for our centenary in 1999. However, with the economic downturn due to the cost-of-living crisis, we chose instead to just celebrate our 125th with all of our teams across our seven factories, which proved to be a challenging task given that they stretch from Perth to Auckland (a distance equivalent of LA to Miami!),” Beard says. “We reached out to some of the many celebrities and sports stars that choose to sleep on our beds, including our former Prime Minister John Howard, who provided us with vox pop testimonials that we were able to share with all of our teams.”
Innovation at the Core: The A.H. Beard Approach
A.H. Beard is proud of its history of product innovation, from importing the latest innerspring machinery into Australia in the mid-1940s to introducing FlexGel gel bedding in 2007 to unveiling its Sleepsense smart mattress to the Australian market in 2016. The Reflex support system, introduced in 2011, remains a foundation of the company’s products, particularly its King Koil-branded mattresses.
as the Australian Bedding Mill.
“Our patented Reflex spring system … incorporates two different heights of pocket springs, a primary spring and a secondary lower height spring, which can be placed in rows across the spring system to provide extra support zones or, alternatively, evenly spread throughout the sleep system,” Beard says. “The Reflex spring system has proven very successful and is incorporated extensively in our King Koil ranges from around $1,999 to $12,999.”
The company offers several bedding collections, including Signature, Body Balance, Re-Spun, Origins, Domino, Nature’s Rest and Nature’s Choice.
The Signature line features high-end, natural components, including cashmere, wool, cotton, mohair and alpaca. The company’s performance-focused Domino line is the official mattress partner of the Australian Institute of Sport and promises “to help active bodies achieve the best possible rest and recovery.” Domino mattress models include the Conforma support system to reduce partner disturbance and prevent premature waking, as well as Climalux, a collection of breathable comfort technologies to help dissipate heat and moisture.
A.H. Beard’s Origins mattresses are stitched by hand, without glue, making them easy to disassemble at the end of their useful lives and include EvoCoil, a fully recyclable pocketed spring support system. Other components include Australian wool, alpaca and organic cotton.
“Our focus in recent years has been on sustainability and recyclability,” Beard says. “We first introduced our A.H. Beard Origins two years ago and then recently we launched our fully sustainable Sleepsmith range, which is hand tufted and features all natural ingredients, a bit of a return to our roots.”
The company also offers the King Koil Re-Spun Mattress by A.H. Beard, which is made with a recyclable spring support system, ethically grown wool and repurposed denim fiber.
The Future of A.H. Beard: Continued Growth and Innovation
Allyn Beard knows that thriving as a family business for 125 years is an impressive accomplishment but, he says, “we’re just getting started.”
“We’re continuously looking for new ways to innovate and new markets to enter, all while honoring the culture, heritage and traditions that make us the business we are today,” he says. “I look forward to sharing our sleep wellness philosophy further across the globe, proving that an Australian-made brand can lead on the world stage. Here’s to the next century and beyond.”
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