I just read your article “Jan/San Wannabe” from the April 2011 issue of Sanitary Maintenance. I own a small commercial laundry business in Montana. I am the third generation in a business started in 1904 that does everything from uniforms and hospital linens to janitorial and restroom supplies. I can tell you that we are NOT Cintas or Aramark or Unifirst. We are a small family owned business and do not operate the way the big laundries do. So putting us in the same category would be like putting Wal-Mart and the local convenience store in the same category.

I realize that you represent an industry that has become highly competitive. But attacking a whole other industry that is full of hard working people just like in the jan/san distributor network is counter-productive at best. We have partnered with jan/san distributors to become redistributors of their products to help cover remote markets that they did not have economically feasible means of selling to. Partnering with a distributor in your industry has worked well for us and them, and both of our sales have expanded. We never go in and underbid someone just to get the business, then charge them other fees to make that back.

What I would recommend to you is contact some of the distributors and find ways to team up with our industry to compete with the big national laundries like Cintas. Many small independent laundries would love to be partnered with your distributors to beat down the big players a bit. We can both prosper if we work together. Or, both suffer if we don’t.

Sincerely,

Ron Brenna
President, Havre Laundry
Havre, Mont.




POSTED ON: 9/2/2011