Yearsley Food

The Challenge

In environments such as these, hygienically laundered, thermally disinfected garments are essential for the workforce to remain safe and clean and the supply chain to be compliant. Yearsley Food outsource the cleaning of all their owned workwear to a specialist laundry company and, having experienced poor standards and disappointing service from their existing supplier, were looking to find a new workwear specialist cleaning partner. They invited CLEAN to pitch for the work, asking for a particular focus on service quality and customer relationships.

Yearsley Food had been let down by their existing supplier and their brief detailed the problems that they had been experiencing. Overall, the cost of the service they were receiving was too high. Delivery drivers were rude and didn’t wait for dirty garments to be dropped off by employees. To make matters worse, the returned laundry was not clean enough, discoloured and had an off-putting smell. The brief went on to ask questions reflecting Yearsley Food’s priorities in a new partnership. Among other details they were looking for a breakdown of CLEAN’s end-to-end process, a focus on micro swabbing to prove efficiency of cleaning, and information on specialist activities such as allergen testing. The CLEAN team responded with a detailed breakdown of our process, outlining the steps and standards within the laundry workflow, the tracking of the garments throughout, and the rigorous hygiene standards upheld by CLEAN that fall comfortably in line with both the BRC and IFC regulations.

Due to the restrictions imposed during the COVID pandemic, CLEAN were unable to visit the site and carry out a pre-proposal inspection for health and safety and collection and delivery process planning.

However, CLEAN looked at the pain points of the existing service, understood the impact that poor service could have on the business, and focused on designing a service that met the specific needs of Yearsley Food. We detailed a response that aligned with the customer’s own systems and the combination of a process, reputation, and service level - as well as an honest, detailed, and confident response to the brief - meant that Yearsley Food quickly made the decision to partner with CLEAN.

The Solution

Due to CLEAN’s extensive experience with taking on existing contracts, we were ready to transition immediately. However, the customer needed to wait for the previous supplier contract to come to an end, so CLEAN took the time to ensure soiled garment collectors - dedicated hoppers for securely holding used workwear ready for collection – were in place and that the appropriate risk assessments had taken place.

Our transition management experience meant we were able to start collections as soon as the previous contract ended and ensure there was no break in service for Yearsley Food – which was essential to guarantee no impact on the customer’s core business productivity or standards. During our first cycles we barcoded each new garment entering the laundry process. This meant that from first wash onwards every item of the customer’s workwear was fully traceable through the system and back to each individual.

Customer response

After a full quarter the process was well established, and the customer gave CLEAN an unequivocally positive recommendation rating of 10/10.

As Elliot Leach, Technical Manager for Yearsley Food, says of the transition, “CLEAN’s Sales Manager quickly got to grips with our needs and was prepared to work at our pace to get everything set up. CLEAN’s clear understanding of our requirements has helped build a strong relationship in a short time”.

Yearsley Food had been looking for a supplier who provided good quality and customer service and have fed back that CLEAN provide just that. The “reliable collection and drop offs have negated any worries that we would be without PPE and unable to continue working” says Leach. As he goes on, CLEAN provide “a simple, quick and friendly service that works to our requirements”.

With a happy customer and an already well-established process, despite the challenge of setting up remotely, CLEAN look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with Yearsley Food.