25-year Scaat Srl/B&B Nastrificio SNC relationship key to UK mattress innovation, says Handy Limited
Posted on: May 23rd 2022
Handy Limited is one of the UKs leading suppliers of bedding and upholstery components, offering a wide range of over 1,300 components and specialist services to the sector for over 30 years.
Key to the supplier’s success is building strong relationships not only with its clients, but also maintaining strong supplier relations with brands at the forefront of sector innovation.
In fact, over 90% of current material purchases by Handy Limited are placed with suppliers that they have worked with over 20 years, and these strong partnerships have helped ensure a focus on high-quality products, reliability, and service excellence.
Catching up with Nick Harland-Smith, Managing Director at Handy Limited, we explore one of Handy’s key partnerships with Scaat Srl/ B&B, an Italian supplier of narrow woven fabric that has driven change in the UK bedding market.
When did you start working with Scaat Srl?
We have been working with Stefano Tono and his creative production team at Scaat Srl/B&B Nastrificio SNC since 1996.
Why did you introduce Narrow woventape edge?
Historically our core markets chose to tape edge their mattress production in tape that had been sliced from full width rolls of mattress ticking. This was labour intensive, expensive and required the tape itself to be double folded due to the raw edges of the cut tape.
Working with Scaat/B&B we were able to introduce their range of dedicated narrow woven tapes to the UK market.
This created a sea of change within our markets as our customers were able to move away from their slower and costlier double folded tape and instead incorporate our dedicated single folded product. This led to faster production, straighter tape edge lines and far less material wastage.
How has this relationship contributed to, the chemical integrity of your customers finished mattress and environmental progress in the bedding industry?
Fire Retardancy (FR) is a critical factor for mattresses produced within the UK. Most of our competitors typically source tape edge from the Far East. Tape edge from the Far East receives a post weaving chemical treatment of polyvinyl acetate latex to stiffen the tape (to make winding easier) which may give a questionable FR pass. Alternatively, their tape may receive a dedicated FR post weaving chemical treatment using brominates or phosphorus. The waste from these chemical treatments have to be ultimately disposed of and we will have to end up lying next to these chemicals should we purchase a mattress manufactured using this tape.
We have avoided going down this post weaving chemical treatment process mindful that these chemicals can harm the general environment and potentially ourselves. Instead to achieve the required FR performance demanded by our customers, we took on the greater challenge of making finite adjustments to our looms which consequently enabled us to combine costlier, but safer dedicated FR yarn into our weaving process. Consequently, not even one metre of our total Fire Retardant production receives any post-production chemical treatment. We are very proud of this fact.
Finally, what has been key to the success of the relationship with Scaat Srl/B&B
With over 200 looms in an 8,500 sqm facility, our Italian partners can produce over 500,000 metres of product and consume over 4 tonnes of yarn per day.
Alongside these sophisticated narrow weaving facilities, they also maintain in-house digital transfer printing production as well as laser cutting and engraving services.
This allows us to provide high-definition printing in multiple colours upon the tape following the weaving process. This is of particular interest to our customers as this enables them to brand individual products, while being able to deliver high volume.
Stefano Tono, owner of Scaat Srl, added; “We have worked with the Handy team for over 25 years. It has been an exciting and fruitful relationship with shared ideas leading to a broadening of our product range and consistent sales growth in our respective companies. We consider the UK market and Handy Ltd as an integral part of our future development.”
To learn more about Handy Limited’s Narrow Woven edge products, Please go to Narrow Woven Tape
Photo Caption: Handy offers a wider range of Scaat Srl’s Narrow Woven Tape.
Key to the supplier’s success is building strong relationships not only with its clients, but also maintaining strong supplier relations with brands at the forefront of sector innovation.
In fact, over 90% of current material purchases by Handy Limited are placed with suppliers that they have worked with over 20 years, and these strong partnerships have helped ensure a focus on high-quality products, reliability, and service excellence.
Catching up with Nick Harland-Smith, Managing Director at Handy Limited, we explore one of Handy’s key partnerships with Scaat Srl/ B&B, an Italian supplier of narrow woven fabric that has driven change in the UK bedding market.
When did you start working with Scaat Srl?
We have been working with Stefano Tono and his creative production team at Scaat Srl/B&B Nastrificio SNC since 1996.
Why did you introduce Narrow woventape edge?
Historically our core markets chose to tape edge their mattress production in tape that had been sliced from full width rolls of mattress ticking. This was labour intensive, expensive and required the tape itself to be double folded due to the raw edges of the cut tape.
Working with Scaat/B&B we were able to introduce their range of dedicated narrow woven tapes to the UK market.
This created a sea of change within our markets as our customers were able to move away from their slower and costlier double folded tape and instead incorporate our dedicated single folded product. This led to faster production, straighter tape edge lines and far less material wastage.
How has this relationship contributed to, the chemical integrity of your customers finished mattress and environmental progress in the bedding industry?
Fire Retardancy (FR) is a critical factor for mattresses produced within the UK. Most of our competitors typically source tape edge from the Far East. Tape edge from the Far East receives a post weaving chemical treatment of polyvinyl acetate latex to stiffen the tape (to make winding easier) which may give a questionable FR pass. Alternatively, their tape may receive a dedicated FR post weaving chemical treatment using brominates or phosphorus. The waste from these chemical treatments have to be ultimately disposed of and we will have to end up lying next to these chemicals should we purchase a mattress manufactured using this tape.
We have avoided going down this post weaving chemical treatment process mindful that these chemicals can harm the general environment and potentially ourselves. Instead to achieve the required FR performance demanded by our customers, we took on the greater challenge of making finite adjustments to our looms which consequently enabled us to combine costlier, but safer dedicated FR yarn into our weaving process. Consequently, not even one metre of our total Fire Retardant production receives any post-production chemical treatment. We are very proud of this fact.
Finally, what has been key to the success of the relationship with Scaat Srl/B&B
With over 200 looms in an 8,500 sqm facility, our Italian partners can produce over 500,000 metres of product and consume over 4 tonnes of yarn per day.
Alongside these sophisticated narrow weaving facilities, they also maintain in-house digital transfer printing production as well as laser cutting and engraving services.
This allows us to provide high-definition printing in multiple colours upon the tape following the weaving process. This is of particular interest to our customers as this enables them to brand individual products, while being able to deliver high volume.
Stefano Tono, owner of Scaat Srl, added; “We have worked with the Handy team for over 25 years. It has been an exciting and fruitful relationship with shared ideas leading to a broadening of our product range and consistent sales growth in our respective companies. We consider the UK market and Handy Ltd as an integral part of our future development.”
To learn more about Handy Limited’s Narrow Woven edge products, Please go to Narrow Woven Tape
Photo Caption: Handy offers a wider range of Scaat Srl’s Narrow Woven Tape.
