About Charlie Betteridge

Born in North London and brought up in Watford, Charlie Betteridge studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University before joining Procter & Gamble in 1979.

After four years in sales covering the South of England, he transferred to the European laundry division, servicing the major group accounts in Germany and Switzerland. In 1985 the laundry business was sold to the Osmac Group and Charlie took over their UK cleaning chemicals subsidiary as MD before moving full-time to Germany in 1989 to manage a newly acquired acquisition and their European laundry business. This was then sold to the Belgian Christeyns group in 1995.

Charlie continued in his role, now with Christeyns, managing the business and overseeing several acquisitions including those of PDS and Oils & Soaps, Bradford, (to become Christeyns UK HQ), in the UK.

As the group continued to grow, he was appointed vice president of the laundry division managing their business with all the international groups. His current role is vice president of global corporate accounts for Christeyns. Charlie has also been on the Board of several laundry trade associations in a number of countries and is a member of the Worshipful Company of Launderers. He is currently on the Board of the European Textile Service Association and has been chair of the TSA in the UK since 2017.

Charlie has spent most of his life in the laundry business and it is a life well-spent. It has given him a varied and challenging career and allowed him to travel extensively. Christeyns is active in 24 countries so pre-Covid he was travelling to one country or another every week, plus regular trips to the UK for the TSA events. Looking ahead, he is starting to wind down gradually towards retirement and is looking forward to having more free time playing golf, swimming, cycling and watching sport as well as travelling more with his wife, rather than on business. If you’re looking for inspiration as to where the laundry business can take you, then look no further.

…I really do believe that there is now a genuine commitment to make the industry more sustainable, not just by consuming less energy and water but also looking at ways to recycle textiles at end of life

On a career in the industry …

Like many people, I had no idea what a laundry was before I started working in one. For me, it was a promotion within P&G. I had no idea what to expect but was instantly struck by how technically complex it all was. Again, as happens with many people in laundry, it was an industry I was to stay in for the rest of my career.

I often joke that it’s a life sentence and nobody has yet found a way to leave but the truth is that it is a fascinating service industry and the fact that so many people choose to make a career in the industry is proof of how interesting it can be. The problem of course is getting outsiders to understand what we do. We ran a public awareness campaign a few years ago through the TSA and put together a great brochure showing the figures behind the industry. As a sector we employ 23,000 people in the UK and contribute £1.3 billion of GVA to the economy. The report also showed how a total shutdown of the industry would bring the whole country to a standstill within days. In some ways Covid did actually highlight just how crucial the laundry industry is and showed how it still managed to cope with the massive changes in workloads from week to week. However, those who don’t know us still see us as definitely not sexy – after all washing other people’s dirty linen hardly sounds appealing! Trying to get young people into the industry was never easy but is now particularly difficult. Many young people want to go into high-tech markets and think of laundry as the high street drycleaner or basically just an old fashioned dirty industry.

It is in fact, very hi-tech and pushing boundaries with groundbreaking innovation in its field. Most new starters to the business are amazed and very positive once they find out what laundry is, but studies show that it does not feature highly on any list of potential career opportunities. That is our problem – working out how to get the message across. Apprenticeships are one way of attracting people and Christeyns in Bradford has been very successful here, but it requires effort with school visits and actively working with the local authorities. It is certainly one of the challenges our industry faces.

On industry developments …

Obviously, the pandemic has changed our industry as it has with many others, and we currently face a very challenging few months with labour shortages, uncertainty and massive inflation all disrupting our businesses.

In the background however, innovation has continued and for me digitalisation and data management are the key developments at this time. One of my favourite questions many years ago when I was giving talks at industry events was to ask how many of the audience knew exactly how many litres of water per kg they used in their laundries. It was amazing how many people had no idea and even if they did, had no idea if it was good or bad.

We have moved on a long way since then, but the key point was, and is, that you cannot improve your performance if you don’t know what it actually is.

Water and energy savings have been the big improvements over the last 20 years, but data management has become increasingly important. New technology can give us a full insight into all the key parameters that will need to be at an optimum level to ensure a profitable business. As an industry in these very challenging times, the successful companies will be the ones that use this data efficiently and to maximum effect.

On the industry’s commitment to sustainability …

For years everyone talked about being “environmentally friendly” and efforts were made. However, if any potential changes cost more, they tended to get scrapped early. Sustainability has however become more than just a buzzword.

Environmental Social Governance is a huge topic for our larger commercial customers and the pandemic has given people more time to reflect on greener issues and I really do believe that there is now a genuine commitment to make the industry more sustainable, not just by consuming less energy and water but also looking at ways to recycle textiles at end of life.

It should though, not be forgotten that we were already doing a lot as an industry – the Climate Change Agreement targets have been met for many years and compared to lots of other industries, we are already quite green – especially compared to domestic washing.

On collaboration within the industry …

As a supplier, we had already recognised the advantages of collaboration with other suppliers to the industry long ago and built up good relationships with the machine manufacturers and linen and garment sector. By discussing new developments between us in advance, potential problems can be avoided.

As I said at the beginning there is a huge amount of expertise within the industry and the trade associations are a good vehicle for sharing this expertise. The Textile services Association (TSA) is doing a great job with the Knowledge Networks and also the various courses that TSA run for members. Another side effect of the pandemic was the introduction of the TSA online webinars, these will remain as a very time-effective way of sharing knowledge. The record attendance at the recent conferences, especially at the dinners the night before, show that collaboration within our industry works. After all, as insiders, we know what a great industry it is.