SupremeX-bean-bag-fillings

SupremeX®  Beans

Could this be the bean that rules them all? We like to believe so, why? Because our beans are twice the density of our key competitors and density is the number one factor in the stability of polystyrene beads.

Why does density affect quality?

Polystyrene starts out life as tiny glass like pellets. Each pellet is a fraction of an in size. Each of our bean bags starts out with 1000s of these pellets. The pellets are placed into an expansion chamber and steam is added, similar to popcorn, the steam causes the pellets to expand. After a few minutes the pellets are fully expanded and then the beads are passed over a drying bed to remove the moisture before packing. They may expand upto 80x the size they start at and this is where the density factor comes in. The smaller the expansion number, the higher the density of material.

The above process is fairly consistent across the polystyrene industry, so what makes SupremeX an awesome quality filling? Well here goes some inside knowledge, like the food industry is known to pump water into meat to increase its profits, most if not all of our competitors are pumping in extra air to increase their profits.

So how do they achieve this if the beans are all expanded in the same way? Well the above process may be repeated multiple times with the same filling, in other words dry the expanded filling and then return it back to the expander, add more steam and voila, the beads grow again. Each time this happens the beads grow bigger and also a lot weaker, the strength degrades not just down to less material but also due to the process of forcing additional expansion.

Having reviewed the market, we have found that the most popular expansion is a massive 3x. This means the manufacturer has expanded and dried the same filling on 3 occasions. Resulting in a low density, low quality polystyrene in the bean bag. Filling that is severely weakened and ready to compress or fall apart with barely any pressure.

This is great for the supplier because not just do they save on the cost of material but you are left buying more fillings from them almost immediately.  For you as the customer this is no good at all.

Whilst we cannot promise our SupremeX beans will go on forever, they won’t, we have chosen the quality first approach to ensure you have the best quality available in the market.

 

 

SupremeX®  Memory Foam

This filling is a custom blend of high quality memory foam, latex foam, supportive PU foam, encased within virgin polyester fibres. It outperforms pure memory foam beanbags in terms of longevity, support & comfort. The fibre gives this bean bag the softness and bounce back of a pillow whilst the foams provide incredible support.

SupremeX Memory is unique to the market, most of the competition including online and main street sellers, they keep their costs down by buying waste foam from scrap yards and shredding it. This means the foam is not checked for compatibility, strength or quality, its purely a pricing exercise. Often the foam in the mix is of very low quality as a large part of the cost of foam is in the weight (density). The result of this approach is a foam that looks ok on day one but can quickly loose its bounce. This results in a flat lifeless beanbag that requires constant shaking out due to compression and that quickly requires topping up.

Our carefully controlled blend of high quality foams combined surrounded in padding fibres helps ensure the SupremeX filling bounces back time after time.

How and why we developed the SupremeX foam

Back in 2012 we introduced our first memory foam bean bags, like much of the competition we found a scrap supply and began shredding it into the bags. Quickly we realised that this scrap just couldn’t cut it, one day we required 40lbs to fill a bean bag and the next only 30lbs. What gives? This was because of inconsistency in the quality of material. We also found that large quantities of some grades of foam would result in a mix that started to bond together when body heat and pressure was applied. For larger and heavier adults, this could mean the difference between some support and literally turning into a pancake on us. We were appalled, embarrassed, and we went on a 2 year mission to solve it.

In 2014 we introduced the first iteration of our SupremeX foam. It was good, consistent in weight and quality. Many of the above highlighted issues were resolved but we still found that regular shaking our was required to plump up the chair. (not easy with 40lbs+ beanbags). We began exploring other materials, eventually settling on a unique blend that includes not just our foams but also fibres that help keep the foam pieces apart. EUREKA!! We had it. A Foam that bounces back time after time, doesn’t easily compress, doesn’t fall apart quickly and supports not just kids but fully grown adults.

SupremeX foam really is a world apart from the shredded anything our competitors so often produce.

 

COMPARING THE 2 TYPES OF FILLING

So how do I choose which type of filling to buy?

We’ve been asked this many times and it’s a very sensible question to ask. The truth is there is no clear winner. It just depends on your goal.

Firstly lets consider the beans. Each beanbag contains 1000s of small round beans. Individually these beans can be compressed in your fingers, however when 1000s are working in unison, the pressure is easily dissipated. There are 2 types of bean bag, sack style & fully filled

Sack style bean bags are beanbags where the filling takes up only a part of the bags capacity. This allows the beans to flow around inside as you move your body. By moving around you can find optimal pressure relief and comfort. The bean bag can also be very supportive and you can be considered to sit “in” a bean filled bag. Our Highback is an example of this.

Fully filled bean bags on the other hand are bean bags which are stuffed full. Our Armchair bean bag is an example of this. These bean bags you sit “on” not in. These kinds of bean bags make great occasional seats in dorms and teens rooms. 

Foam sacks are very different. Foam naturally wants to squish and it doesn’t matter what quantity of foam is inside, its always going to be squishy, it just depends by how much. Foam doesn’t easily move around inside the sack so you sit “on” and not “In” a foam sack. The benefits of this type of bean bag is the cloud like cushioning feel.

HOW TO CHOOSE A BEANBAG

You may now be wondering what we would suggest for you. Of course we cannot directly answer this without learning more about your specific application however we would suggest that if you go for a huge bean bag, foam is usually the better option, smaller bean bags are usually best with beans. If you would like support or orthopaedic benefits, the choice must be beans. And there you have it, for anything else please send us a message and we will be happy to help.