Jay-Be – Manufacturing Guild Mark Holder Profile

This is an abridged article first printed in our 2023 Austin Friar yearbook in May 2023.

Staying relevant in an ever-changing and uncertain world is fundamental. For some businesses, this kind of agility may be alien, but for Yorkshire based manufacturer Jay-Be it is part of the company’s DNA. Jay-Be’s manufacturing roots can be traced back more than 130 years.

The original business began life when John Richard Burrows, the great-great grandfather of current CEO Roger Durrans, started trading with merchants in wool and textiles. Evolving the business in the early 1900s, the family harnessed new skills and entered the bed and mattress market. Fast forward to the 1960s, and the company established a new division to manufacture upholstered products. Jay-Be diversified again in the 1980s with metal bed frame manufacturing, which saw the launch of the official Jay-Be brand, focusing primarily on folding beds, sofa beds and metal bed frames.

Around the turn of the millennium, the company recognised that the way consumers were shopping was changing, the internet was accelerating, retailers and consumers were demanding faster delivery, and the competition was fiercer than ever before. As such, the company decided to exit all products which were slow and bulky to deliver. In 2018, the company entered the rolled mattress market, launching its first range of environmentally friendly children’s mattresses, which was followed by the launch of an eco-friendly adult mattress range in 2020.

Today Jay-Be celebrates its proven history of inventing products by expanding its offer into a comprehensive collection of folding beds, adult and children’s mattresses, as well as premium sofa beds for domestic and contract markets. There’s no doubt that Jay-Be is proud of its history and being a UK manufacturer, primarily because of the trust and confidence it gives to customers.

Wishing to promote and demonstrate its self-belief as an exemplar to the UK furnishing industry, in 2019 Jay-Be applied and was successfully awarded the Manufacturing Guild Mark.

Founded in 1993, the Manufacturing Guild Mark is awarded to British manufacturers that have demonstrated high standards across all areas of the business. To achieve the Mark, a business must first pass a rigorous, independently reviewed audit against a comprehensive set of criteria, including design, product development, manufacture, HR, financial stability, sustainability, and sales and marketing.

“To be awarded the Manufacturing Guild Mark is a great honour,” says Rob Livingstone, Jay-Be’s operations director. “Not only does it represent the recognition of excellence and high standards throughout our business, but it also recognises the hard work and dedication of our employees. To have an accreditation that is developed and awarded by some of the most well-respected members of our industry is something we are very proud of.”

One of the ambitions of the Manufacturing Guild Mark is to provide assurance to retailers, specifiers, distributors and customers that the furnishings they purchase are manufactured with care and that the company they are doing business with strives for excellence in everything it does

Rob explains: “As a business, we understand that great value, quality and world class service is important to everyone. Being a Manufacturing Guild Mark holder confirms to both our retailers and the consumer that we not only manufacture products of the highest standard and quality, but that our business and business processes are of exemplary standards.

“Being a Manufacturing Guild Mark holder is very important to us, our company is expanding into new markets and experiencing a rapid rate of growth, so it’s crucial that our established business processes and excellent standards are not only maintained but immediately recognised within the industry.” Sustainability is already a criterion that the Manufacturing Guild Mark audit incorporates.