Meditation cushions, bean bags and pillows handmade in Chicago since 1987
✅ Made in USA
Where Bean Products products are made
Chicago, Illinois
Bean Products runs its own eco-friendly manufacturing facility in Chicago, where the cushions, bean bag chairs, body pillows and pet beds are cut and sewn. The company’s own banner reads “Handmade in Chicago Since 1987,” and its product listings carry an explicit Made in USA label.
Natural and organic fills
Rather than default polyurethane foam, Bean Products builds around organic cotton, hemp, kapok, buckwheat hulls, natural latex and recycled poly fiber — including USA-grown hemp fiber hurd. The fill is the product in this category, and the company is specific about what goes in it.
Customized to order
Because the sewing happens in-house, virtually any product can be customized to order — sizes, fabrics, embroidery. That is a capability a company loses the moment it moves production to a container-load overseas supplier.
Bean Products states that it handcrafts each and every Bean Product right here in the USA, at its own Chicago manufacturing facility, and its product listings carry an explicit Made in USA label. Some of the natural fill materials it specifies — kapok and natural latex in particular — are agricultural products that do not grow in the United States and are necessarily sourced abroad; the company is open about its materials list. The sewing, assembly and finishing are domestic.
The story
Bean Products started in Chicago in 1987, making cushions and bean bag chairs by hand. The company likes to point out that it was building environmentally friendly home essentials “long before ‘green’ was cool” — which is a fair claim for a business that was specifying organic cotton and buckwheat hulls in the late eighties.
The core products are deceptively simple. A zafu and zabuton meditation set is a round cushion and a flat mat; a bean bag chair is a fabric shell and a fill. What separates a good one from a bad one is entirely the material and the stitching, neither of which is visible in a product photo. Bean Products competes on both, and publishes the fill contents rather than hiding them behind a generic “filling” line.
The materials list runs to organic cottons, hemp, kapok, buckwheat hulls, natural latex, recycled poly fiber and USA-grown hemp fiber hurd used as animal bedding. The catalogue has grown outward from meditation cushions into body pillows, pet beds, yoga props, foam rollers, shiatsu mats and organic soft furniture — all sewn in the same Chicago facility.
Because production is in-house, personalization is a standing offer rather than a special order. Virtually any product in the line can be customized, from fabric choice to embroidery, which is why the company’s own story page describes it as “customized comfort with personal panache.”
Why they matter
Soft goods are one of the most thoroughly offshored categories in the American home. Cushions, pillows, floor seating and bean bags are bulky, low-margin and labor-intensive to sew — exactly the profile that moved overseas first and most completely.
Bean Products has held a Chicago sewing floor through nearly forty years of that migration. The reason it can is the same reason its products are worth buying: it competes on material quality and customization, not on hitting a price point. A buckwheat-hull zafu made from organic cotton is not a commodity, and it cannot be meaningfully cheapened without becoming a different product.
The environmental argument and the domestic-manufacturing argument turn out to be the same argument here. Specifying organic and recycled fills, sourcing hemp grown in the United States, and sewing locally all shorten the same supply chain. A company doing this since 1987 was not chasing a trend — it just never left.
Featured products
Browse Bean Products meditation cushions, bean bag chairs, pillows and yoga accessories available now in the Buy American Campaign store.
Frequently asked questions
Where are Bean Products made?
At the company’s own eco-friendly manufacturing facility in Chicago, Illinois. Bean Products states it handcrafts each and every product in the USA.
How old is Bean Products?
The company has been handcrafting home essentials in Chicago since 1987 — by its own description, long before “green” was a marketing category.
What are Bean Products cushions filled with?
Depending on the product: organic cotton, hemp, kapok, buckwheat hulls, natural latex and recycled poly fiber. The company publishes its fill materials rather than listing a generic filling.
Can Bean Products items be customized?
Yes. Because the sewing is done in-house in Chicago, the company offers customization on virtually any product, including sizes, fabrics and embroidery.