Caring for your mattress through the Kerala monsoon
Damp air, closed windows and mould spots: how to keep coir and latex mattresses fresh from June to October.
Why a natural latex mattress costs what it does
Rubber, coir, cotton and labour: a line-by-line look at the ₹46,500 price of our queen latex mattress.
Our queen-size natural latex mattress costs ₹46,500, and our coir and latex mattress ₹21,800. Customers who have seen foam mattresses at half the price sometimes ask what the difference pays for. Here is a rough breakdown for the latex mattress.
The latex core is most of it. A 15 cm queen core of natural latex weighs about 38 kg. We buy cores made from field latex tapped on estates around Kottayam, and the price moves with the rubber market. This season the core costs us about ₹26,000. Synthetic or blended latex is cheaper, but it does not have the same spring, and it is not what we sell.
The cover comes next. We sew a removable cover from thick cotton drill woven in Kannur, with a zip on three sides so it can be washed, and a layer of cotton quilting for a soft surface. Cloth, zip and thread cost about ₹4,200 per queen cover, and two people take most of a morning to cut and sew it.
Then labour, the workshop and delivery. Eleven people work in our building, and a mattress passes through four of them. Delivery and old-mattress pickup within Kerala are free, which is about ₹1,500 per order, and the 10-year warranty and 100-night trial have a cost too. After rent, power and GST, our margin is roughly 15%. A coir and latex mattress uses a thin 5 cm latex layer over rubberised coir, which is why it costs less than half as much.
