Like the invention of the mop,
one of the best Spanish mattresses
was also born in Aragon.
We are talking about
Flex
, which is currently celebrating
its 110th anniversary
from the moment in which Don
Antonio Beteré Salvador had the idea of opening a tiny
mattress repair workshop
called Numancia
on his own account in Zaragoza in 1912 .
Despite his tremendously humble origins, the young man was not daunted by starting a business.
The idea arose after his uncle Andrés Lucía offered him
to work in his blacksmith shop
where they fixed pallets, those mattresses from the beginning of the century
stuffed with straw, esparto grass and grass.
He first took care of the accounting, but he immediately envisioned another path to follow and opted for
the production of pallets.
As the dictionary of the Royal Academy of History tells us, "this began with the introduction of the mattress patent of the American Simons, a novel mattress, without springs,
based on a metal mesh inserted in a frame,
which was baptized by Lucía as Numancia mattress".
As a result of
winning a little money in the lottery,
in 1925 Don Antonio opened the first metal bed base factory in Zaragoza and little by little
he expanded the business
to several Spanish cities such as Madrid and Burgos.
As soon as the Civil War ended in 1939, Lucía handed over the management of the Madrid factory to her nephew and created the mercantile Fábricas Lucía Antonio Beteré, SA, which was later
renamed Flex.
At that time the first
announcements in the press and radio began.
The success in distribution allowed them to open more factories in Barcelona, Tenerife or Bilbao.
In this desire to continue improving and crossing borders, the businessman opted to
create an identifying logo
born in 1956 that still lasts to this day, the swan, while the company changed its name, "Flex a product of Numancia".
Seven years later it would be
simply called Flex.
At the end of the 1960s, the company is
one of the three largest mattress producers in the world.
Its continuous advances in the
innovation department
with Multielástic, Polycoton shock absorbers, the first upholstered base in Spain or articulated wooden slats have made the
Beteré family one of the richest in Spain.
According to the latest list prepared by EL MUNDO, the descendants of Don Antonio occupy position 305 with a fortune of
175 million euros.
At the beginning of this century they decided to
cover the business of luxury products,
so they bought the British artisan firm Vispring and the American firm Kluft, which sells mattresses from 20,000 euros.
Paradoxically, its historical rival,
the Pikolín company,
was also born in a small locale in Zaragoza in 1946 thanks to Alfonso Soláns Serrano, whose son succeeded him in the position.
These surpass the Beteré in fortune, since according to EL MUNDO they rank 132 with 435 million euros.
Conforms to The Trust Project criteria
Know more