How Hotels Cut Laundry Costs by 30%

Glenn: [00:00:00] Everybody. It’s your hospitality, friend, Glen. I got Bart Begley of Integrity Laundry Services. I’m here at their home office to help you understand. Total linen solution. Completely different way of thinking about how you’re handling all of your linens. Bart, so great to see you. Hey, great to be on. So how does all of this stuff work? Because it’s kind of mind blowing. You’re actually taking all of the laundry facilities out, you’re taking the ownership responsibility out, and you’re making sure customers always have clean towels and sheets. That sounds pretty cool to me.

Bart: [00:00:29] Great question. Yeah, we’re asked this a lot. So we’ve kind of devised a total linen.

Bart: [00:00:34] Management program, right? So we saw a huge need for a number of different things. One, a steady supply chain, right? Two was to have a uniformed way to satisfy the needs of the requirements for all of your brand standards. So we took that into consideration also. And how do we get something that’s serviceable on a regular basis that eliminates all the other headaches that they’re experiencing now, right?

Glenn: [00:00:59] So many headaches. And I just think about all of the hours that the housekeeping teams are focused on these issues when they could be helping guests or cleaning rooms, correct?

Bart: [00:01:08] Correct, correct. And that’s what we saw. So we saw we started off as a cog, a customer owned goods company. And we found that to be very cumbersome. It was hard because let’s think about this. We had hundreds of hotels, right? So we’re bringing in all their linen having them separate. And you saw all our planet’s huge, right? So we’re doing £50 million. So when you’re sitting there trying to separate a 200 or 300 room hotel and try to be efficient as you possibly can.

Glenn: [00:01:33] So this, this is from one major franchisor, this is from another, and this is from this owner. That’s from another. That’s extremely confusing. Now you’ve eliminated all of that, which helps reduce costs. Because now hoteliers no longer have to own or worry about the linens. You provide everything.

Bart: [00:01:49] Correct? Correct. And it’s a continual supply. So we always have it right. So so there’s no shortage. We’re actually the seventh largest customer for standard textile, which is the largest in the US.

Glenn: [00:01:59] Well, everybody knows that, right.

Bart: [00:02:00] And they developed, they helped me develop the whole Integra luxe brand. Right? So we went through, we spent three days in Cincinnati, Ohio, developing this brand. So it was a well thought out brand, right?

Glenn: [00:02:10] Meeting and exceeding all of the brands no matter what you’re with the full service hotel, a focused service hotel, or even a boutique hotel.

Bart: [00:02:17] That is correct. That is correct. So we eliminate the need. You never have to worry about linen supplies ever again. There is no shortfalls, right? We also had technology. So we went a step further and we actually developed our own software. So we have our own branded software that actually goes and works with their reservation systems. So we see when somebody checks in, it comes into our system. We see that there’s a check in. We know when the checkout is, we know what the requirements are on a per day per stay basis. So they never have to call us.

Glenn: [00:02:45] So, you know, on Sunday they’re at 47% occupancy. On Tuesday they’re at 93% occupancy. And you make sure that they have everything they need plus an emergency supply. So there’s no problem.

Bart: [00:02:58] That’s correct. We keep an on site inventory for them at no charge until they utilize it. So there’s not like an extra cost at any given time. So we work exactly with our operations so their revenue meets their expenses all the time, and no need for extra unforeseen CapEx requirements either. Right. That’s all eliminated. It all goes away.

Glenn: [00:03:16] Also, you’re eliminating the need to buy the equipment. You’re needing the you’re eliminating the need to power all of that equipment. You’re eliminating the need to fix all of that equipment. And you’re also eliminating the possibility that your overworked team is not fully loading all of the machines and running as few cycles as possible.

Bart: [00:03:33] Correct? That’s correct. And we’re seeing up to 30% savings in actual laundry linen cost on an annual basis, which is huge. When you start looking at a per cost room, it’s usually a couple dollars that we’re saving on a per occupied room night expense.

Glenn: [00:03:46] And every room in your hotel every day of the year. That starts up to yield real savings while increasing employee engagement and just making life a lot easier for everybody. Bart, am I missing anything here?

Bart: [00:03:58] Sounds like you got us.

Glenn: [00:03:59] But I think we’re missing one thing. How can you supply linens for the resort pool club and smokehouse? I got four bedrooms. All right, everybody, thanks so much for watching. Watch. Share. Subscribe. Love you guys. See you next time.