How is Foam Shipped and Packaged?
Memory foam products becoming more popular for mattresses, and the internet shopping slowly replacing traditional store shopping has led many people to ask how foam products get to where they need to go. Because of the hefty dimensions of large products like mattresses, people may cringe at what they imagine the cost of shipping such a large item may be. Fortunately, foam manufacturers have perfected ways of packaging foam as economically as possible. One style, typically used for bulk orders by major manufacturers, is tightly rolling with heavy machinery. The other method, and the one used more often on individual purchases like mattresses or pillows, is vacuum packing.
Vacuum packing is one of those rare things that is as simple as it sounds. The item to be shipped is attached to a vacuum that sucks air from the sealed package, drastically reducing its size. The reason this works so well is because the majority of foam filling is air. And with all the cells in open-cell foam being interconnected, in a vacuum sealed bag, you can quickly shrink a product down in size.
While it may seem like it would take quite a powerful machine to attain the compression foam needs to economically ship, many companies don’t need a vacuum any more complicated or powerful than a simple shop vacuum. Once the form is reduced by as much as 75 percent, it is sealed, wrapped, packaged, and sent on its way in the most cost-effective way possible.