Rick Saez

Quality and Innovation in down production for over 100 years with DOWNLITE’s Josh Werthaiser [EP 321]

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DOWNLITE has been enhancing lives for decades by providing a superior comfort experience. They began in down and feather more than 100 years ago and

continue to lead in quality and innovation today and today I’m excited to speak with Downlite President of the Feather and Down Division Josh Werthaiser

Show Notes

How Josh got started at DOWNLITE

I got a call one day from my father and he said, Hey, you know, we’re trying to figure out what the next step is for the company, and whether we’re gonna help the company get to the next generation. He asked if I had any interest. I went to my current employer at the time and I said, Hey, I’ve been invited into the family business, let me try it out. My employer at that point basically said, Hey, no problem. Enjoy, we’ll give you six months. And if you are interested in coming back in six months, we’ll have you back. I said, that’s awesome thank you. I started in September of 2001 at Downlite and haven’t looked back since.

TDS and RDS

Responsible Down Sourcing

Traceable Down Sourcing

Recharged Down Program

GRS certified facilities collect materials for products that have been in the market for a while, and they will open them up with a separate them.

They’ll remove the fill. They keep it segregated so that the goose stays with the goose. The duck stays with the duck. Through the use of materials, basically, the down cluster will break apart a little bit.

So you see a little bit more fiber. So we have to work with partners of ours who can extract that fiber, or we get it here in Cincinnati at one of our manufacturing facilities. We will actually extract some of the fiber as well to make the quality, that it needs. Just like RDS, that recycled material does carry a transaction certificate so we can validate where it came from.