Simon Wittenberg goes horizontal to put a Mammoth experience to the test and reports back on his first month of rest.
A Mammoth overview
Headquartered in Tyne and Wear, the Mammoth business has an interesting story. Founder and CEO John Tuton previously worked in the healthcare sector, supplying medical mattresses for seriously ill patients.
At the time, he suffered a back injury whilst playing rugby and struggled to get a good night’s rest.
With several months off work, and using his knowledge of physiological fatigue and stress, he went back to the drawing board to re-engineer sleep technology and built a prototype mattress which helped to both improve his sleep and recovery. Realising that there was a market for what he had developed, John ploughed his life savings into the new venture and incorporated the Mammoth Sport business in the midst of a recession on 27th of May, 2009 at just 30 years of age.
Fast forward a decade, and the Mammoth range is sold by nearly 200 retailers across the UK, plus the company has customers as far afield as the United Arab Emirates. Furthermore, it has won the Bright Ideas accolade at the Health Awards, organised by the NHS, and has developed exclusive partnerships with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP), Tottenham Hotspur Football Club and the Rugby Players’ Association, amongst other organisations.
In fact, Mammoth is now the appointed supplier of mattresses for the likes of elite athletes, England footballer Harry Kane and members of the Formula One community.
A Mammoth level of technology
At the heart of all Mammoth mattresses, which are made by The Foam Company in Oxfordshire, is Medical Grade™ Foam and PostureCell® technology. In clinical trials and independent testing, the Medical Grade Foam has been proven to improve sleep, deliver superior postural support and offer greater pressure relief than a standard memory equivalent and sprung mattress surfaces.
The result of combining memory foam technology with medical-grade material is that the mattress does not retain any heat, therefore helping those lying on it to stay cool and comfortable when in bed. The revolutionary Posture Cell arrangement uses individual springs which move independently to help absorb the motion of the individual whilst they sleep and to help them move easily during the night.
The Mammoth line-up
Giving today’s consumers a broad range of choice and price points, there are three mattress collections in the Mammoth line-up, which are namely the entry-level Wake®, Rise® and the luxury model Shine®, which was the subject of our product test. Each is offered in four different sizes, spanning Small to Super King, and with varying degrees of feel – Firmer, Medium Pocket and Softer.
The first only uses medical foam, whereas Medium Pocket, the middle ground, sees a combination of the foam and pocket springs, whilst the softest option has a layer of SkyFoam™, another medical foam placed on top of the standard medical grade foam if you follow me.
Ideal for those suffering from back pain, the top-of-the-range Shine product is broken down further into the variants, Essential, Plus and Advanced, and is available from £899. The latter, which I tried, is the deepest mattress of the three at 300mm, which has enabled Mammoth to have seven PostureCell comfort zones (two more than the Plus) to support the sleeper from top to bottom.
Not being a fan of a mattress that is too hard or one that you really sink into, I opted for the Medium Pocket as a compromise in a King Size, which comes with 3,000 full-sized pocket springs surrounded by 90mm of Medical Grade Foam. This is all topped with a soft-to-touch and luxurious Tencel® cover and ergonomic handles to move the mattress easily.