I want to give everyone a great night's sleep and that's what gets me up in the morning

Floks now has their own concept sleep and wellness store, warehouse and a new partnership with Harrison Spinks to create top quality wool mattresses.

"We were dispatching all the orders from our house,” recalls Sophie. “We tried to outsource fulfillment but you just can’t give the level of service or guarantee that pristine product experience that we wanted people to have. So we started exploring having our own warehouse facility. I’d also been thinking about us having a our own shopfront so that people could actually see and feel our products but they are big and bulky and there just didn’t seem to be anywhere in Boroughbridge near to where I live.”

But it was while calling in for a pint of milk to her local farm shop that fate took a hand. “There was a barn opposite the Yolk Farm shop in Minskip that was to let but it wasn’t water tight or in a state that we could use.” After chats with the owners and a lot of work they now have a dedicated sleep shop where they dispatch all the orders from. “It’s been amazing. We’ve got really good customer base but also so much passing traffic – people use the farm shop and restaurant like a service station. It means we get customers coming in from Scotland or Essex or wherever the call in to Yolk for a coffee and end up buying a mattress from us,” says Sophie. “We never thought that the shop channel would be nearly as big as on line channel. It was a really unexpected success.

“And we now have an amazing partner in Harrison Spinks who make all our mattresses for us. We actually went to see them about getting a display mattress for the toppers and duvets and they said they could develop a range of mattresses exclusive to Floks using our traceable British wool. We want the customer to have that perfect microclimate for their bedroom so by ensuring they have an excellent premium natural mattress to sleep on as well.” There are now three mattresses in the range. They have also developed a hospitality line for hotels, recently having supplied the Michelin starred restaurant with rooms Myse in Hovingham with mattresses, duvets and pillows, it’s an area Sophie would like to expand in the future.

“The thing is with our products they are the type of thing that people don’t replace regularly because they last and so we have to look at new markets – that’s the hospitality industry but also exporting to other countries. But again the size of our products does make that quite difficult.” As well as wool, Sophie is passionate about customer service. “People can make an exclusive appointment to come and try the mattresses, duvets and pillows on their own if they like. We also offer a 30 night sleep trial because we do believe that customers will sleep better with our products.” Sophie also works specialist manufacturers of other sleep-related product including pyjamas and blankets. “Anything we sell we have to have complete conviction in and it is all around sleep and wellness. When a customer comes in they know exactly what we are about.”

Wool and faming is in Sophie’s DNA. “My grandfather worked in the Wool and Textile trade and he used to grade wool in the 1960s and 70s so I think it is in my blood,” she says. “My other grandfather was a Yorkshire farmer.” Floks uses only British Cheviot wool from certified farms. “It has a natural crimp in its fibre that lends itself perfect to bedding. As we are part of the British Wool Traceability scheme we know that at least one of the farms we get our wool from is Scottish ad I have been and visited him.

"We are part of the British Wool Traceable scheme so we can pinpoint the wool we use down to specific farms. British Wool is based in Bradford so all our wool comes from them. This provenance combined with the fact we only manufacture in the UK and subsequently have a very low carbon footprint is a key part of our DNA and I think has resonated really well with our customers.

"We design and manufacture everything in the UK, meaning bales of wool aren’t travelling overseas to be made into bedding, a concept I couldn’t get my head around when we have an abundance of wool and the manufacturing skill set here. The result is a range of luxury British wool bedding which we believe will help people sleep their best sleep in a fully sustainable way.” Wool is thermoregulating, meaning it keeps you cool in the summer and warm in the winter. "Being too hot or too cold is cited as the biggest reason for poor sleep as it wakes us up, particularly in children who cannot yet regulate their body heat or women going through the menopause.”

Floks may have grown quickly, as Sophie hit the wool bedding market at the right time, but now more players have entered the market adding more competition. “Not all wool bedding is created equal. We are a brand of extreme integrity and are completely transparent but that comes at a cost,” she says. "When we started out people were just beginning to understand the benefts of wool bedding and were wanting to know more about the provenance and sustainability of what they were buying – at the end of its life it completely decomposes and customers are much more mindful of what they are buying.

"While sustainability is important, ultimately we launched the business to help people sleep better and that’s why we get up in the morning.”

floks.co.uk