Industrial applications

A canteen on a shift pattern feeds people at three in the morning, and the workwear still has to be clean by six.

Workforce catering and industrial laundry for manufacturing sites, distribution centres and industrial facilities. Specified for continuous shift operation, heavy soiling and equipment that has to be robust before it is anything else.

Talk to us about your site 01200 411 914

Typical siteManufacturing, distribution and industrial

RunsShift patterns, often around the clock

HandlesWorkforce catering and workwear laundry

Factory canteen servery with heated wells during a night shift

What we design forThe night shiftEquipment specified for continuous duty, not office hours

What is different here

Nothing stops for the weekend

Industrial sites run when everyone else has gone home, and the equipment is treated accordingly. Six things shape most specifications.

Shift patterns

Two, three or continuous shifts. Catering has to serve at hours a normal kitchen never opens.

Continuous duty

Workwear, not linen

Oil, grease, dust and metal swarf. Industrial laundry chemistry and machines are a different discipline.

Heavy soil rated

PPE and compliance

Where workwear is protective, washing affects performance. Process and records matter.

Documented process

Robust before elegant

Equipment on an industrial site takes knocks. Build quality outranks features.

Heavy duty

Site services

Three-phase, compressed air, process water and industrial drainage. The site usually has more to work with.

Services surveyed

Downtime is measured in output

A canteen or laundry failure disrupts production, so response times are set against that.

Priority response

Reviewing catering or workwear provision?Tell us the headcount, the shift pattern and what you currently outsource. We will specify what is worth bringing in-house.

Book a Consultation

Scope

Canteen, servery and laundry

Two operations that keep a workforce fed and correctly dressed.

Catering

Feeding a shift

Production and service sized to headcount and break patterns rather than to covers.

Bulk cooking for shift meal service
Regeneration for meals cooked on an earlier shift
Bulk refrigeration and freezer storage
Rack and pass-through warewashing
Equipment that runs reliably unattended overnight

Servery

Breaks are short

A break is twenty minutes. The servery has to move a queue faster than a restaurant ever does.

Hot and cold servery counters
Grab-and-go and vending-adjacent chilled provision
Beverage and water provision at volume
Self-service layouts that move a queue
Out-of-hours provision for night shifts

Laundry

Workwear and textiles

Industrial washing specified for oil, grease and heavy soiling.

Heavy-duty washer extractors
Industrial dryers with proper lint handling
Chemistry and dosing for oil and grease
Separation where PPE or contamination requires it
Capacity sized to the shift changeover

Lint, heat and extractionDucting designed in rather than added afterwards

Industrial laundry

Oil and lint are the two things that end badly

Chemistry specified for the soiling, since oil and grease do not come out on a linen programme.
Machines rated for heavy soil and continuous duty, not light commercial equipment run hard.
Lint handling and duct routes designed in, kept short, accessible and cleared on a schedule.
Separation where contamination demands it, including PPE and anything hazardous.
Drainage and interceptors appropriate to what comes off the garments.
Capacity matched to shift changeover, which is when everything arrives at once.

Continuous operation

Equipment that runs around the clock fails differently

Duty cycle is the number that matters. Equipment specified for a nine-to-five kitchen will not last on a site that never stops.

Row of industrial washer extractors running in a workwear laundry

Duty cycle specified honestly, so equipment is rated for the hours it will actually run.
Redundancy where a failure stops production, usually two smaller units rather than one large one.
Servicing scheduled into planned shutdowns rather than fitted around them.
Spares held or guaranteed available, since a two-week part is not acceptable on a live site.
Energy use reviewed, because continuous running makes efficiency worth real money.
Monitoring and alarms that reach someone on shift, not an empty office.

In-house or outsourced

Bringing it in-house only pays at the right volume

Plenty of sites outsource workwear and canteen provision, and for some that is the right answer. We will model it honestly, including labour, energy and water, rather than assuming the equipment sale.

Current contract costs modelled against in-house, including labour.
Water, energy and drainage costs included, not just the equipment price.
Space and services assessed, since the room often decides the answer.
Phased change, taking part of the volume in-house before all of it.
Planned replacement forecast from age and duty rather than after a failure.

Talk about the numbers

Works canteen hot counter with a heated gantry and workers queuing

How it runs

From headcount to a canteen that runs on nights

Survey

Headcount, shift pattern, break times, workwear volumes, services and space.

Specification

Catering, servery and laundry specified to duty cycle and shift changeover.

Programme

Work planned into shutdowns or quiet shifts, with permits where the site requires them.

Install and commission

Installed, commissioned, certificated and demonstrated to catering and facilities teams.

Service contract

Planned servicing in shutdowns, priority response when production is running.

Questions

What facilities teams ask first

Can equipment be serviced during a shutdown?

Yes, and that is how we prefer to schedule it. Planned visits go into your shutdown calendar, with priority response while production is running.

Is in-house workwear laundry worth it?

It depends on volume, space and labour. We model it against your current contract honestly, including water, energy and drainage, and will tell you if outsourcing wins.

How do you cater for a night shift?

Usually with regeneration of meals cooked on an earlier shift, plus grab-and-go chilled provision. It needs equipment that runs reliably with minimal supervision.

Do you work to site permit systems?

Yes. Permits, isolations, inductions and working hours are agreed with your site team before we start.

Will you maintain equipment you did not supply?

Yes. The asset register is built at the site walk and exclusions are listed then rather than discovered later.

Talk to us about your site

Tell us the headcount, the shifts and what you outsource.

We will survey the canteen and the laundry, model the options where the answer is not obvious, and quote against your shutdown calendar.

Speak to the team · Mon–Fri 9–501200 411 914

We use Google Analytics to count visits and see which pages are used, so we can improve this site. It is on unless you turn it off. We would also like to use Google Ads cookies to see which adverts lead to enquiries, but only if you allow it.What we collect

Analytics on