Furniture leather: But there’s still a casualty

Verulam, KZN, SA – Bravo Brands is in the process of closing Grafton Everest, in Verulam, 1 of its 3 furniture manufacturing plants.
Its other furniture manufacturing divisions are Alpine Furniture in Stellenbosch, W. Cape, and GommaGomma in Isithebe, KZN.
The Grafton factory made fabric and leather upholstered furniture, as does Alpine. GommaGomma makes fabric furniture. Before the closure, the furniture division employed 2 300 staff making 45 000 furniture pieces/month, according to Bravo’s website.
Heath Mirtle, technical and operations director at Alpine, said of the Grafton closure: “This is still the subject of ongoing consultations and therefore I am not able to make any comment at this time.”
Bravo Brands also has 4 factories, employing 1 100 people, making Sealy, Slumberland, Edblo and King Koil mattresses, and a carpet division making wool carpets under the Nouwens brand.
The furniture and mattress divisions export to other parts of Africa.