For World Sleep Day 2025, Chris Tattersall, managing director of leading natural sleep brand Woolroom, explains how the retailer has set itself up for success in the US by applying learnings from the UK. He shares his insights into the exciting opportunities for the sustainable bedding market, and stresses the importance of sleep health for all.

Do sleep shopping habits differ between the UK and US?

While sleep shopping habits certainly differ between US and UK markets, both show rising demand for sustainable bedding materials, such as wool.

We recently completed extensive consumer profiling in both countries, and it’s interesting to note that the consumer motivations show a distinct differentiation. UK consumers are motivated by the environmental impact of their choices and the use of natural materials, whereas US consumers are driven by a demand for comfort, health and wellbeing. In the US, we don’t see the same misconceptions around wool that we do in the UK. American audiences don’t carry that association with wool being itchy and hot, as UK shoppers often link wool with childhood memories of that uncomfortable school jumper.

This couldn’t be further from the truth – the right wool is a soft, hypoallergenic material that is temperature-regulating due to naturally occurring air pockets within its fibres. These ensure that you stay cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s not, making people less likely to wake up in the night due to overheating.

We soon discovered that although perceptions differ, the same problems with temperature regulation and allergies underpinned both markets, meaning we were able to apply our learnings from the UK to the US market with ease in 2019. Our US business grew 90% YoY in our last financial year, and the US has now overtaken the UK as contributing the largest share of revenue at Woolroom, demonstrating the major appetite for natural bedding across the pond. As a result of our international trade efforts, we were proud to win a Queen’s Enterprise Award in 2021.

Woolroom’s UK data also supports this trend, as sales of our natural mattress products have risen by 20% over the past year alone, with our organic cotton bed linen up 45% in the first five months of the year. Our most organic bedding range, carrying the Global Organic Textiles (GOTS) certification as a marker of the highest quality production processes, has also seen remarkable YoY growth of 64%.

More broadly, forecasts are predicting that the global organic bedding market is set to expand from $0.99 billion in 2023 to $1.51 billion by 2032, and we are seeing many new bedding retailers entering the natural bedding market to capitalise on this prediction.

How are behaviours are changing?

Customers are waking up to the link between sleep and wellbeing. A good night’s sleep is nothing short of a superpower for your health, with a lack of sleep having a detrimental impact on cognitive function, the ability to regulate emotions, our immune systems, diet choices and so much more – this could be an entirely separate article!

Google search evidence shows that consumers are seeking sustainable products in every category, with the search topic ‘sustainability brands’ having grown 400% over the past five years. Meanwhile, searches for ‘sustainable bedding’ increased by 120% according to Google Trends data in March 2025.

To capture the sustainable consumer’s attention, transparency over materials and where the bedding products that you spend a third of your life sleeping in have come from has been absolutely crucial. In response to that demand, in 2020 we launched our Wool ID® traceability programme in conjunction with British Wool. This allows customers to trace the origin of every product back to the specific farm and flock it came from, using a QR code system that is completely unique to Woolroom.

It is no surprise to see that ‘sustainable clothing’ searches are also up 80% over the past five years, as the environmental impact of fast fashion has been well documented. We believe the bedding industry is in dire need of its fast fashion moment, as many of the problems around poor quality materials, manufacturing and irresponsible environmental choices can clearly be seen.

This need to introduce ‘slow bedding’ was the driving force behind our latest Artisan collection. The range features each of our mattress models made with more natural materials than ever before, crafted by hand over a two-day period by skilled artisans, with easy deconstruction at end-of-life the priority throughout. Woolroom is built on 150 years of textile manufacturing knowledge, and we continuously apply advancements in manufacturing capabilities to our products, not only to respond to sustainable demand, but to do the right thing by people and the planet.

Doing the right thing has always been one of our values, and it is that value-driven, passionately committed behaviour that consumers also respond well to, as actions speak far louder than words.

What are wool products replacing in your view? Does your data highlight this shift?

In terms of bedding, wool duvets, pillows and mattress toppers are replacing synthetic and feather and down alternatives. More specifically for mattresses, wool is replacing memory foam and bed-in-a-box mattress options that are made purely for convenience, with no thought given to the environmental or health impacts on the consumer. These are made with petroleum-based materials such as polyester and polyurethane foam, and sprayed with toxic chemicals as a box tick exercise to meet fire retardant regulations.

The stats truly are shocking when it comes to disposal: over seven million mattresses worldwide are discarded each year, with a mattress made of synthetic materials taking 80 to 120 years to decompose. By contrast, a wool mattress will decompose in just six to 12 months, as wool is the only naturally decomposable and naturally fire-retardant bedding fibre.

Our sales data shows that revenue from Woolroom’s natural mattress products have risen by roughly 20% over the last year alone, showing that consumers are making a positive shift.

How has the new Artisan collection performed so far?

Having launched on 14 February, the Artisan mattress collection is showing an incredibly promising first few weeks of sales. Website traffic to the Artisan mattress pages in 2025 has grown by 101% in comparison to the same period in 2024, with traffic to the Standen model having grown by an astounding 135%.

Overall, Woolroom’s annual turnover increased from £5.7 million to £8.5 million between August 2020 and August 2021 and is estimated to reach £16 million this financial year.

To explore Woolroom’s full range of natural and hypoallergenic bedding visit: https://www.thewoolroom.com/