The Textile Services Association’s quarterly cost index is always a good marker in the sand for the sector’s fortunes and a stand-out figure this time is the staggering increase in labour costs.

These have risen by 28.4% over the last three years, due to factors including the Government’s minimum wage increases, and continue to make up the single biggest operating cost for any contract laundry group at 40% of expenditure.

Laundry people are precious

It’s great that employees are getting paid more, and this is inevitable amid a continued cost of living crisis. People are, after all, every operator’s greatest asset.

So, if we can all agree that humans are precious, why are so many laundries still frittering their staff time on linen that cannot reach client standards?

There’s a significant cost attached to the processing of non-conformance linen, which is ultimately discarded.

Even more so when the expense of transporting sub-standard pieces, and further staff time among housekeepers tasked with sorting and rejecting them, is factored in.

Sub-standard stock is clogging up systems

Wasteful practice is easy overlook. You might think that a couple of sheets here and there won’t make a huge different to productivity but let’s not forget the TSA’s own figures that 55% of hospitality linen is discarded before it is six months old.

So, non-conformance stock is clogging up laundry systems – causing an additional drain on fuel, water, energy and chemicals – at a time when the sector, and indeed the planet, can ill afford it.

Yet who can blame management for trying to keep linen out of the bin, in the hope of inhouse rescue and revival, when the cost of textiles – 15% of a CLG’s outlay – has gone up 4.94% in the past 12 months?

Making ‘bad’ linen good again

Savvy operators know the answer to this conundrum. More and more are carefully isolating stained or discoloured linen and sending it to Regenex. We called it ‘bad’ linen there but it’s only bad until we make it good again, using methods that ‘kill or cure’ cannot match.

At our West Yorkshire HQ, we apply our textile chemistry knowhow to lift the heaviest of marks – be they food, fake tan, rust, mould or anything else – before inspecting each batch, repurposing anything we cannot clean, and returning only 100% serviceable items from whence it came.

So with Regenex on board, precious employees are able to focus their efforts on up-to-standard linen, saving time and resources – and much less stock goes to rag or landfill.

• If you want to find out how you could save money and carbon with Regenex, you’d better call Paul on 07795 693345.