In the first weeks of the war, the Dnipro company “MatroLuxe” turned out to be the only major domestic manufacturer of mattresses that continued their production. Therefore, it took on the main part of meeting volunteer needs not only in mattress products, which appeared in the first days of the russian invasion due to the mass migration movement that began in the country. For such needs, a so-called resettlement package was formed, which included a mattress topper, a blanket and a pillow. As the executive director of “MatroLuxe” Dmytro Shamin said, the appeals of volunteer organizations were satisfied, of course, not with premium-level models, but with the simplest samples, but even such, in their quantitative dimension, turned out to be a significant burden on both production and the company as a whole. Five thousand such sets were formed and distributed to volunteers. However, later, when volunteer organizations began to receive certain funding, they also took Matrolux products on a paid basis.

At the same time, the company carried out a partial relocation of mattress production, relocating part of the equipment and a number of employees to Lviv with their voluntary consent. The newly created unit started working almost simultaneously with another production location of the company – Kyiv, which was launched when the immediate threat to the capital was eliminated by our army. So, by the beginning of summer, all three mattress factories were fully functioning.

– Before the war, in addition to the main products – mattresses, the company was also engaged in furniture, producing both soft and cabinet furniture. Do you continue their production?

– So. However in the first period of the war, the demand for furniture, especially upholstered furniture, was practically zero. There was little demand except for beds.

– Has the market for mattress products undergone changes?

– And essential ones. The demand for economy class models has grown rapidly – if we take our company’s view, then by half – the demand for economy class models has increased. Premium-class mattresses actually lost demand. Economy and mid-price segments currently dominate the domestic market. Demand shifted from high to medium, from medium to economy segment.

As for the furniture market as a whole, the trends on which we monitor and orient ourselves fell by an average of forty percent during the war. But this indicator varies regionally. It is better in the capital region and in the west of the country, worse in other regions.

– Innovation has always been an important production characteristic of the company, which provided your mattress products with high competitiveness. Did the difficult conditions of martial law lower the level of innovation in your production?

– On the contrary: they were forced to work more in this direction. Foreign purchases of mattress-making materials, including fillers, have become more difficult – mainly due to jumps in exchange rates, which prompted some of them to look for replacements in Ukraine. This also applies to domestic raw materials, for example, to replace coconut coir.

The fact that the production of economy-class mattresses doubled, the use of imported materials which in the current conditions is economically unjustified, and therefore risky, led to partial import substitution.

– And the company did not submit its export positions? Because in general, the situation in our furniture industry is as follows: some, due to various reasons, mostly external, began to lose foreign markets, while others, on the contrary, actively expanded their presence in them. Why, let’s say without too much modesty, our Association contributes to a large extent.

– At the beginning of the war, we even managed to increase exports by several commodity items. Today, although the situation in the country is not as critical as it was at the beginning of the war, we do not have confidence in the possibility of stable supplies of products abroad. All the more so in conditions when large foreign retailers insist on long-term contracts with fixed prices.

However, this does not mean that we will completely abandon exports. We have it and will have it because we need foreign exchange earnings for imports necessary for production. But we never had the desire to sell the lion’s share of our products for export. We limit ourselves to thirty percent. The domestic market has always been a priority, and it will remain so, no matter how feverish it is, because we see both market niches and product areas in which we can still develop.