I have written about this topic and have it posted on the website but with a New Year I thought it was time to highlight this issue again, as it is not going away anytime soon.
Whenever we import furniture into New Zealand we are opening ourselves up to a couple of serious issues. MAF Biosecurity New Zealand reported on furniture that was coming into New Zealand from some Asian countries and what they found was unsettling indeed.
The quality of the product was poor. The "construction materials used were of poor quality … undressed and dirty timber (even the occasional tree branch"). I'm sure when you head out to buy new furniture, this is not what you hoping to find. Unfortunately this is nothing new to us in the trade, we have been seeing this happening for some time. If you are buying cheap furniture you are going to get sub par quality. Furniture is fast to produce when you have the resources, but like this image states, you can't get all 3 in one item - you have to pick 2!
EWWWW, What's That?!!
When MAF inspected 51 couches they found 39 of them were contaminated with insects! But it's ok, only one of them was alive! Yes ALIVE! This does not bode well for our forestry industry. If that little critter was something new to our land, who knows what havoc it could create.
With the huge number of woods used in the construction of the couches (reported to be 65 different types of wood), it increases the chances that they could introduce new pathogens (or pests) into NZ.
Lets talk about fungi.
A decent number of these couches also had a case of the fungi's! 11 of them were infested and 10 of these had more than one species, but only 6 were identified! What does that say about the unidentified ones?
But what is the end result? Well the report says the risk to New Zealand is low because importers voluntarily fumigate. But in tough economic times, when all businesses are trying to cut costs, is this an area that gets chopped?
Mind you, if these importers are trying to be responsible and fumigating, do they know what chemicals to use if they can't identify all the critters?
Upholstery Fit Outs (UFO) would like to encourage you to buy locally. Buy from local manufacturers and re-upholster using our New Zealand upholsters. This way we not only support local business and the economy, but we reduce a biosecurity risk.
If it's cheap, think about why that's the case!
Have you had any experience coming across something unexpected when you bought a new lounge suite? I would be interested to hear.
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