Keeping it clean

PAULINE Goose has run a linen hire business, Well Laid Table, in East Anglia for a number of years. But her dissatisfaction with the standard of cleaning she was getting led to a decision a few years ago to set up her own laundry, and the resulting Peterborough Laundry Services quickly established a number of quality contracts from the Norfolk area to as far away as London.

"We can handle several thousand pieces per week," says Goose. "Our customers are guesthouses, hotels and a number of restaurants, so the laundry needs vary considerably."

All of her customers own their linen rather than opting for linen hire. "It's a big outlay at first but over time it works out cheaper. We deliver two to three times a week, so the caterers usually need less stock than when they use linen hire," says Goose, who estimates a hotel or guesthouse will need to hire at least three sets of linen: one in use, one in reserve and one in the laundry.

Getting the laundry business started needed the help of experts, so Goose turned to Warner Howard, specialist in laundry design and the supply and maintenance of laundry equipment. The company advised on the type and quantity of equipment to use and the best layout to ensure an efficient workflow. Warner Howard also commissioned the equipment, trained the staff and provides ongoing maintenance. Equipment specified included Primus washers, Cissel tumble dryers, large Danube ironers and a Silc finishing table.

Ken Wheeler, sales and marketing manager for Stalbridge Linen Services, puts the sets of linen needed by a hotel at a higher figure than Goose's. According to Wheeler, a hotel may need anything from five sets to double figures depending on the number of deliveries and the number of linen changes.

Stalbridge, which provides a linen hire and laundry service to the catering industry, claims to be unique among laundries in that its Premier service for the supply of sheets and towels to hotels carries no contractual requirements or fixed terms.

This ensures that, when a chef leaves, his replacement will receive a new kit immediately without charge, and a customer wishing to change the colour of sheets or table linen to match new decor can do so without additional charge.

Stalbridge operates different types of service in different parts of the country. The company's permanent hire service, which is primarily used by the contract catering sector, covers most of England to as far north as Blackburn and York and includes South Wales; for temporary hire for event catering, coverage is across most of the country; and the Premier service is available from the south-west of England up to the south Midlands.

Among the recent converts to Stalbridge's service is the 29-bedroom Coach House hotel at Stratford upon Avon, which made the switch last summer. It previously operated an on-premises laundry (OPL) but had difficulty getting reliable staff to operate the facility. "Switching to a hire service is not saving us a lot of money but we have got rid of a lot of the hassle," says joint manager Rosemary Moss. The hotel now has all of its bed linen provided by Stalbridge and is looking at the possibility of also hiring table linen and chefs' whites.

Gareth Draper, sales director at Shaws Laundries, which operates in London and the South-east laundering linen for businesses that own their own stock, has identified a trend towards owning linen in preference to linen hire. "There seem to be recurring issues regarding quality, service and stock control between some linen hire companies and their customers which sour the working relationship," he says. "However, because the client believes linen purchase would be cost-prohibitive and because they are invariably tied into a binding contract with the hire company, few companies are prepared to look at alternatives. When they do, what they find can be a surprise."

Shaws, a family business since 1895, claims to be currently negotiating with five major London hotel chains with a combined total of 4,500 bedrooms. All have linen-hire contracts but are looking at the benefits of purchasing their own linen. "Our seven-days-per-week service and 24-hour turnaround means that our clients can operate comfortably on three sets of linen, where linen hire would need five," says Draper.

According to Draper, hotels are also moving away from in-house laundering because it involves compromise over quality as well as hidden costs, including the premium on the space occupied by an OPL, particularly in London.

For the Four Stones restaurant in Clent near Stourbridge, time and image were the deciding factors in switching to a linen-hire company. "We used to have somebody who came in to do our laundry," says partner Mario Botta, "but with the increase in business and the time it was taking we could not continue to do it ourselves. We needed the linen to look right and that meant a professional service."

The restaurant, which serves about 400 covers a week, carries three sets of linen and uses Midland Linen Services, which collects once a week or more often during busy periods such as the recent Christmas holiday. The company specialises in the supply of restaurant table linen and chefs' wear on a contract basis, or as a laundry for customers' own linen.

"The main reason restaurants turn to professional laundries as opposed to OPL is the capital involved in purchasing the linen, labour, water, electricity, detergent costs and the problem of putting a good finish on starched linen," says Jeffrey Yap, managing director of Midland Linen Services. "Restaurants, by their nature, are usually in high rent and rateable locations and most find that the space needed for their own laundry machinery can be better utilised for increasing their turnover and profits." n