HIGH POINT, North Carolina — Culp Inc. has targeted Europe as its second largest sales territory after the USA with the opening of its Poznan, Poland based warehouse in March.  

From this warehouse, Culp is initially offering 40 sku’s from its library of thousands of sku’s from its highly diversified product line, including a new line of Embrace® recycled leather to the European based furniture manufacturer, with no minimum quantity requirement. Gerry Strange is European sales manager, based in Poznan. He works with Jim Nehlsen in the USA. This represents the first time Culp has been able to warehouse product for the European market.

The opening of Europe for Culp comes after its successful transition as a manufacturer of upholstery fabrics in the USA to a vertical producer based in China where Culp owns a finishing plant since 2004 (near Shanghai) that works with a variety of mills based on their core competency, said Liam Waters, senior vice president of sales and design. “The finishing plant insures that Culp is offering finished product up to world class standards,” he said. “China lacked export finishing capability until Culp got into the equation. In every product, Culp starts with its color line and assigns parts of the color line to each Chinese mill,” he said. “A small number of mills supply Culp in China,” Waters said. “”It’s much like conducting an orchestra. We make the most of the core competency of each mill that we work with, giving each a portion of the color map. When you have to match one dye lot to another from one panel in a sectional to another, this is important.” 

Recycled leather is Culp’s largest selling category today in a very short time, less than one year. A companion line of warp kitted velvets form China at $4.50-$6.50 is being offered along with Embrace. “Recycled leather has replaced artificial suede,” said Liam Waters, Culp vice president, product development. Although Culp still is a player in artificial suede, it sees Embrace recycled leather taking over. “The world buys more margarine than butter when it comes to leather,” Liam laughed. He was describing the 40:1 ratio of recycled leather sales to top grain leather and at a greatly reduced price to the buyer. Culp’s product at $6-$9 a yard in five different weights from dry to lustrous finishes with a polyurethane face for a buttery soft hand and a ground recycled (waste) leather back to give the product heft. “Ours is an upgraded product compared to bonded leather,” Waters explained. Culp is offering Embrace in nine colors for the first time with success.

While Culp is a leader in the recycled leather category, Rob Culp admits his company cannot do everything. For example, Culp is not involved in outdoor fabrics. Competitors try to steer clear of Culp when it gets involved in a category to the extent it is involved with leather. ”All we would do is chase dollars going up against Culp,” one converter said.

Although Culp at one time generated sales of $300 million in upholstery, today Culp is generating $100 million in sales of upholstery in every conceivable construction—including flock—with 85 percent of the production in China. Its $130 million in ticking manufacturing business is still based in the USA. Waters said that the ticking business requires faster delivery to the mattress manufacturer than does upholstery to the furniture maker. Culp is a smaller, nimbler supplier, marketer and logistics supplier than it was ten years ago before it transformed itself, Waters explained. “We own the vertical thought process from conception to development,” he added. Culp’s latest quarterly sales report showed an 18.7 percent sales increase overall with $118.2 million and operating income of $6 million for the period ending 10/30. Culp is smaller and more profitable than it used to be.

The move to European sales comes ten years after adopting a Chinese platform for being a very agile vertical maker of innovative upholstery fabrics in the lowest cost environment. Culp is an important customer to several Chinese mills after being its own manufacturer and converter for many years. This transition saved Culp from extinction and makes it one of the largest suppliers of residential furniture upholstery in the world today. Culp is marketing upholstery body cloths in the $3.50-$9.00 range FOB and pillow patterns in the $5.95-$11.00 range today working primarily in polyester and acrylic yarns which they develop themselves. The yarns developed by Culp have branded names like Acrasilk®, 100 percent acrylic which are said to be brighter and more durable than most acrylic yarns and Polysilk®, 100 percent polyester with silk look and luster. Culp’s Embrace display

Since 2002, Culp Inc. has transformed itself into a vertical supplier of Chinese made upholstery fabrics after closing 14 manufacturing plants in the USA. “We went through the same problems that plagued Quaker Fabrics and Mastercraft. Business was very slow. We had to regroup and survive,” Waters said. “We were in survival mode and it was very capital intensive at that time,” he added. Initially, Waters was skeptical of morphing into a supplier from a manufacturer.  Ten years ago he went on his first China trip along with Culp execs Howard Dunn and Rob Culp, hoping it would be his last but now, 40 trips later, he knows that this move to China saved the company. Retailers and other manufacturers had already turned towards China and Culp knows it wasn’t among the first to go there.

New colors of Embrace, Culp’s recycled leather lineBeyond China, which Culp still views as the only place to source high quality at a value price, Vietnam comes into play as a potential source country, but Waters said it lacks the infrastructure to be important as an upholstery sourcing destination. For now, Culp wants to watch the Chinese clean up its textile industry by reducing carbon emissions, something Culp says China is doing. “We operate in China the same way we do in the USA,” Waters explained. About half of Culp employees are in China and vice president of human resources, Teresa Huffman said there is less turnover amongst China based employees than in the States. “This is a people business and we like to get people involved in all aspects of our business.” 

Today, after reducing its employee count from 4,500 people to 1,100, a feat accomplished in part by Teresa Dunn, Culp has only one plant left in the USA based in Anderson, SC, making textures and woven velvet, according to Boyd Chumbley, senior vice president of operations. He joined Culp in 1984. He works closely with Waters, with Culp since 1999 and Huffman, with the company since 1986.  F&FI