CHICAGO — They say that change is the only constant in the universe, and that’s certainly true when it comes to textiles. Textile manufacturers consistently work to find newer and better materials that make their products more effective for the end-user.
And that means changes in how the textiles are laundered.
Mark Mann, vice president of the USA Business Unit for MIP Inc., which manufactures reusable healthcare textiles, uses the simple cotton undershirt as an example.
“There was a day when we all wore cotton undershirts, and they took long to wash and even longer to dry,” says Mann. “And then, one day, Under Armour came out with this new high-tech material that was more comfortable. It was cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter. It wicked sweat away. It provided all these things, but it weighed about 10% of what your old cotton shirt weighed.”
He also points out that the new product is processed differently than the old cotton shirt. No bleach is used, and the dry time is shorter, and the shirt offers a better performance and useful life.
Changes are taking place across all sectors of the textile industry: hospitality, industrial, food and beverage, and healthcare. Launderers need to stay on top of these changes—and how those innovations will change the laundering process.
FOOD AND BEVERAGE
Just like industrial textiles are becoming more differentiated, Brenda Burris-Drake, vice president of Marketing Communications in the Specialty Fabrics Division of Milliken & Co, sees the food and beverage market moving toward unique patterns and color designs.
“But of course, in the laundry, consistency is key. Form and fashion must meet the functional requirements,” she says. “ColorSeal™ is one of our technologies that helps seal the color to the textile, which helps improve the fastness of the color through industrial laundry and bleaching. In fact, our Signature color consistency has been proven as some of the best color consistency in the market.”
Burris-Drake notes that even with a variety of designs and colors, the way the company engineers the products allows for mass customization without specialized processing.
Steve Kallenbach, director of Market Solutions for ADI American Dawn, also sees more colorful options when it comes to chef coats and cook shirts.
“In the past 50 years, that’s just been all white,” he says. “In the last 10 years, you’ve seen the introduction of black coats and trims and chef coats with black and white and some other trims, and you see a lot of the baggy pants with stripes and checks and such.”
Kallenbach says that laundries will have the same kind of separation as seen in industrial uniforms—light colors, dark colors and whites.
“What will happen in laundries as they get into color chef apparel, they’ll probably have to run it in a smaller machine,” says Kallenbach. “Will it cost a little more? It probably will at first. But as they get to critical mass, it won’t cost any more, because it will be at full load.”
Another change that Kallenbach notes over the last five to six years is the emergence of microfiber bar towels/mops. He estimates that 40% of the market is now microfiber, replacing cotton.
“They last much longer, they are bleach-resistant, and they’re just a nicer presentation to the customer,” he says.
In terms of processing, Kallenbach says that the microfiber bar towels wash in about the same amount of time as a cotton bar towel; however, one can put about 40% more microfiber bar towels in the wash wheel. Even though some of the chemistry may cost a little bit more, because of the maximization of wash yield, the cost comes down significantly.
“Particularly in the dryer, cost comes down significantly,” he says. “Not only can you put more towels in the dryer, it just takes a lot less time to dry.”
Finally, in the food and beverage area, Kallenbach and ADI American Dawn see a big opportunity for 12-by-15-inch napkins. He sees more Americans becoming savvy to the environmental effects, and companies and restaurants are looking for other options than paper, ways to upgrade themselves.
“We see that becoming the first opportunity for a rental laundry to rent a 5-cent napkin and actually make money,” he says. “We see that as a possible game changer in food and beverage, and that’s just entering the market right now.”
Launderers can put about 40% more lunch napkins in a wash wheel, so the cost is much less than processing a dinner napkin. They both last 80 to 100 cycles, but the cost of acquisition is much less.
“What it should do at that time is it should raise the amount of laundering they’re doing, because this is a new, virgin market they currently don’t have,” says Kallenbach.
HEALTHCARE
The textile market that is probably seeing the most change and innovation is the healthcare market. From bedding to scrubs, manufacturers are providing more high-performance, synthetic products for hospitals and other healthcare facilities.
“The kind of things we’re focused on at MIP are products that have impact on patient outcome,” says Mann. “That would be bedding, patient wear—anything that’s on the bed, anything that comes in contact with the patient’s skin, including patient wear.”
The company has also made changes to caregiver textiles, and it’s been a long time since any improvement has been made in that area, he says.
“As you improve on one side of the house, you need to improve on the other side of the house, or the laundry is not going to pick up 100% of the efficiency,” he says.
The shift in all of these products, according to Mann, is toward high-performance, synthetic textiles. The change for launderers is that high-performance textiles are lighter.
“Laundries are going to have to make a shift,” he says. “Hospitals are going to demand it, and there will have to be some acceptance on the cost associated with that.”
Mann says that because the textiles weigh less, the laundries will be much more efficient in how many pieces they can push through the facility in a given day or shift. The associated costs in processing from an equipment side are not going to go down, he says, but what will go down for laundries is the amount of time they spend.
“Say you’re using reusable underpads. Old-technology reusable underpads could weigh as much as a pound and a half. Which means you take 110 pounds, divide it by a pound and a half, and that’s how many pieces are going to be in the chamber of that tunnel,” says Mann. “New-technology weighs less than a pound, so you’re gaining about 50% capacity just by moving to high-tech product, which means you’re going to put more pieces through your system, at least in the wash system, than you would with the old-technology.”
He says the high-performance textiles will require fewer chemicals to process because less rewash will be necessary.
“They don’t stain like natural fibers do from all of the things you can imagine that come into contact with healthcare linens. It will wash out easier,” Mann says. “There will be far less rewash.”
Kallenbach and ADI American Dawn also see healthcare textiles trending away from blended scrubs and blended bed linens to 100% poly scrubs and bed linen. He says that the laundering formula for the latter is basically the same except for some tweaking with regard to chemistry. The difference he sees is that the poly lasts longer.
“The cost of merchandise will go down for the launderers as a result of the conversion from blended scrubs and bed linens to poly scrubs and bed linens,” says Kallenbach.
Another product line gaining traction is microfiber room-cleaning products. It has become fairly standard that hospitals use microfibers to clean rooms because of the antimicrobial nature of the products.
“We believe that through self-policing, if you will, we actually think that the healthcare industry will be writing guidelines in the next five years that will pretty much dictate that room cleaning be done with microfiber of some sort,” Kallenbach says.
For on-premises laundries, especially in nursing homes and long-term healthcare facilities, ADI American Dawn sees an emerging market for knitted products, because most of the laundries in those facilities don’t have ironers.
“With the new knitted and fitted products for long-term care, the difference in that is really finishing,” Kallenbach says. “Right now, long-term care facilities have a small laundry facility and they wash them and dry them, they don’t press them, and they don’t look all that great. Knitted products really come out looking wonderful.”
He also sees knitted products for long-term care facilities becoming more attractive to laundries that don’t process healthcare goods.
“This is not acute care; it’s just long-term care,” says Kallenbach. “It doesn’t typically have the blood work. So, where you have a laundry not in healthcare, say, in food and beverage, and they can do some isolation in their soil area, they can get into this type of product without adding ironers because it’s just wash and dry.”
Change continues to take place in the textile industry, and Burris-Drake has some advice for laundries to help them be able to serve their customers: work with the suppliers.
“We would recommend that launderers understand the textile products they purchase by working closely with their suppliers,” she says. “It is good that launderers get process and product training offered in the industry and use resources available to them.”
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