With more than a decade of experience in commercial laundry operations, Martin Richards has built a reputation for strong leadership and a down-toearth understanding of the dayto-day realities of running a busy laundry business

Martin is no stranger to juggling responsibilities, and, undoubtedly, balancing family life with a demanding operational role has helped shape his practical, people-first approach to leadership.

As laundry operations manager at Hospitality Linen Services, part of the Apex Hotels family, he leads a team of 30 people while overseeing everything from production efficiency and quality standards to fleet logistics, machinery maintenance, and health and safety.

Over the years, Martin has led a number of projects to improve operational performance and streamline processes, helping the business continue to deliver consistently high standards in a fast-moving and demanding environment.

His experience covers all aspects of the operation, from staff management and compliance through to equipment upkeep and logistics, giving him a well-rounded view of what it takes to keep a large commercial laundry running smoothly.

Outside of work, Martin is a busy dad of four, with two boys and two girls ranging in age from toddlers to teenagers. Like many in the industry, he’s no stranger to juggling responsibilities, and, undoubtedly, balancing family life with a demanding operational role has helped shape his practical, people-first approach to leadership.

He’s passionate about getting the best out of both people and processes, and believes the future of the laundry industry depends on continuing to invest in teams as well as technology. We spoke to Martin about his career journey, the challenges and opportunities facing the industry, and what it really takes to keep a large-scale laundry operation running day to day.

On his current role…

I first started out as a linen porter in Apex Grassmarket Hotel 21 years ago, this gave me the linen bug and I grew to love it. In 2013 we decided to open our own laundry operation, which I was very excited about and just wanted to get involved. From there, my role has evolved from supervisor up to operations manager. We are also looking at the possibility of expanding our operation further south to service our hotels in London and Bath, which is really exciting to be part of. We have had many projects going on over the past few months that I’m proud of, installing the new water filtration was one of the highlights, saving us up to 30 per cent in water costs alone. We’ve also recently had installed two brand new towel folders from Girbau, which are the FT-Q folders, these are the first to be sold in the UK and as we needed two of them, they were designed to work as a pair, which is the first on this model from Girbau in the world.

On industry challenges…

I think the biggest challenge in managing a laundry fleet is the amount of laws and legislation around transport fleets, as this is something I never really knew until starting in the laundry. Constant changes by the traffic commissioner, makes it more difficult to stay in tune with. But attending webinars and in particular training keeps us all up to date. Cost of utilities are playing a huge part in making running any laundry challenging, with rising fuel and labour costs. We are looking at automating as much of the laundry process as possible to ensure we remain as profitable as we can, exploring the possibility of biofuels is also something we are looking at. I think the labour costs, moving forward, are going to have a huge impact I think a lot of laundries will explore automation as much as they can, also with rising utility costs, efficiency will be key, so innovations in technology around utility savings will be huge in the industry.

On sustainability….

Most recently we have installed a new water filtration system, Blue Ocean, from Ecolab which has reduced our water usage by 30 per cent. We have also introduced spot checking of our laundry items throughout the day to ensure our quality remains the best and below a reject target of two per cent. I continue to learn lots about sustainability and ESG, which is becoming a big part of what we do. As we look at automation within our laundry, I have seen and learned a lot of new things, visiting other laundries helps with ideas. I’ve also had the opportunity to visit a machinery manufacturer recently where I saw a new automated sorting station, this was really interesting, just shows how much technology has advanced in the past few years.

On future improvements…

In the next five-10 years I think a lot of laundries big or small will become automated as much as they can, with improving technologies. I’d like to see a few more medium sized laundries that focus on customer quality popping up throughout the country. Also, linen recycling needs to improve, we need to start creating a circular industry in terms of reuse of fabrics and towelling, instead of single use which is what the industry tends to do just now. Instead of sending condemned linen away to make rags, we should have something that allows the fabric to be remade into new sheets/duvets towels etc.

On football and family…

I have four children, two boys and two girls, ages range from 17 years to three years, so not much time for myself, but we do like long walks with the dog, a standard poodle called Murphy, and holidays, we believe in making lots of memories and giving our children different experiences in life. I’m also a huge Manchester United fan, so try and attend as many games at Old Trafford as possible during a season in which I take the boys with me on occasions.