Keetsa is a mattress company that is about two things: being ecofriendly and giving people a great night’s sleep. Every level of Keetsa’s product design and business model is intended to be efficient, while also being as green as possible. Keetsa strives to be better than the rest in every area of making, selling, and distributing mattresses.

Keetsa, a small, family-owned company, started out a little over three years ago in San Francisco. It now has six locations, five in the U.S. and one in Canada. “Keetsa,” says General Manager Joe Alexander, “has quickly become one of the more recognized names in the ecofriendly mattress movement.”

“We never run promotions and try to avoid the whole used-car experience,” Alexander says. “You will never be asked if you want to buy a mattress in our stores.”

Instead, Alexander says, “We focus on educating the customer [by] solving their mattress/sleep issues and when [they] are ready to buy, [they] can buy.”

This approach sets Keetsa apart from other mattress brands that rely on department stores and middlemen to sell the product. With Keetsa, it’s direct.

Keetsa mattresses are made out of “Bio-Foam,” plush memory foam made using 20 percent less petroleum oil than competing foam mattresses. This reduction is achieved by mixing in castor bean and natural plant oil with the petroleum. Keetsa also uses natural latex rubber for its Latex Foam mattresses and green tea extract for some of its products as a natural scent to avoid using chemical deodorizers.

Keetsa’s mattress bases are either an individually wrapped coil base made with recycled steel or pre-consumer recycled foam base made by reclaiming Keetsa’s own scrap foam from the manufacturing process and mixing synthetic latex to create a recycled foam base material.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the company is how it packages and delivers its products. It’s much simpler and less dangerous than tying a mattress to the roof of a car. Keetsa’s mattresses are vacuum-packed inside a box that comes equipped with built-in wheels, so the customer can safely wheel it out to the car and into the home.

“Keetsa comes in a box small enough to fit in most cars. In fact, we put a queen-size mattress and platform in a Smart Car!”Alexander says. Keetsa’s “Mattress to Go” may just be the easiest way to ship or transport a mattress to date. (See this video: http://keetsa.com/onair/blog/?p=15)

For online orders, Keetsa also offers free shipping through UPS. “The entire ecofriendly process results in less cost of goods,” Alexander says.

Keetsa is able to pass this savings on to its customers. “Our twin-size mattress starts at $419 and our most expensive bed starts at $1,800,” Alexander says. “We are about half the price of a comparable quality; even still, our materials are more durable, with a better warranty.”

Keetsa’s New York City boutique is located in SoHo, surrounded by shops, cafés, and restaurants. Upon entering the store it is made obvious that Keetsa offers a different kind of mattress shopping experience. The store décor has a natural theme, with organic reeds for headboards and bonsai plants, river stones, and other accoutrements of a Zen garden.

Keetsa employees speak with each customer to find which mattress will suit their individual needs—whether it is a firmer mattress outfitted with the company’s unique independent iCoil system or a softer mattress made completely of Keetsa’s Bio-Foam. The feel of the mattresses can only be described as cloud-like. The plushy Bio-Foam molds and contours to the body’s curves, relaxing the body’s joints and areas of tension.

Keetsa has found interesting and inventive ways to be ecofriendly in a field that consumers may not have realized had the capacity for such green pursuits. Alexander believes firmly in Keetsa’s unique manufacturing and marketing practices, saying, “There are a few [companies] out there that are following suit; we applaud their efforts. After all, aren’t we trying to change the way things are done?”