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IKEA Announces Chests and Dressers Meet New Standards in U.S.

April 17, 2024  by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry   

“At IKEA, we believe that the new, mandatory requirements provide clarity to manufacturers, build consumer trust, set a level playing field and, most importantly, reduce industry-wide tip-over incidents,” says Fredrik Crus Oddbjörn, global head of bedroom range transformation for IKEA of Sweden AB.

Fredrik continues, “At IKEA, we always start in our own house, heavily investing in research, innovation, product development and testing, leading to new and innovative technical solutions for furniture stability. The work is a top priority, it is ongoing, and it will never be finished. From April 2024, all chests and dressers sold in the U.S. will be compliant with the new mandatory regulation.”

Furniture tip-over accidents are an industry-wide issue, and IKEA is committed to taking a leadership role when it comes to home safety. For many years, IKEA has invested in tip-over accident prevention through product development, through educating customers about the importance of anchoring furniture to the wall, and by working together with legislators, safety advocates, and others toward a mandatory stability standard for clothing storage furniture.

“We’re so happy to share how IKEA is transforming our product offer and customer education in our on-going journey to prevent tip-over accidents, and enable consumers to lead a safer life at home. We all felt a sense of urgency to bring this new range to the market as quickly as possible,” says Tracey Kelly, Program Lead, IKEA U.S. Safer Life at Home Development. “We’re grateful for the support of all of those who have been with us on this journey.”

To develop and produce the clothing storage furniture range offer that meets the new standard, IKEA drew on years of home furnishing expertise, working with existing designs to create new solutions. “The best and fastest way to meet the US stability standard starts with the furniture design,” says Fredrik. “Each product will have the best possible stability feature for its design, and the development of new and innovative stability solutions will continue with future clothing storage range. We feel that these solutions, when combined with wall anchoring, will help significantly reduce the risk of tipping over.”

Among the stability innovations developed for the new IKEA clothing storage range is the patented Anchor and Unlock solution featured in the VIHALS family of dressers. Anchor and Unlock helps reduce the risk of tip-over by requiring the customer to anchor the dresser to enable more than one drawer opening at a time. To encourage further collaboration, IKEA shared the patent for this solution with the furniture manufacturing industry. Through the IKEA patent pledge commitment, other manufacturers have access to use this solution in their own products.  

IKEA believes that everyone has the right to feel safe at home, and safety is the starting point for the design and development of all products. Please visit ‘Our view on product safety’ for more information.