Kitchen Linen In Cranbrook On The Kitchen Round

Yes — Cranbrook sits on the IG1 round, 7 days, 15.2 miles from our Wembley plant.

• Shared with Barkingside, Little Ilford and Gants Hill — the same vehicle covers them, so a brigade here can be added without moving anyone else.
• The driver knows the service entrances around Ilford and Gants Hill — which matters when the drop has to miss prep by half an hour.
• A missed window here is picked up on the next round rather than the next week, which is what 15.2 miles buys you.
• 124 kitchens around IG1 are already on this round — so the vehicle is sized for kitchen work rather than adapted to it.

That is the point of putting Cranbrook on the IG1 round rather than a separate trip.

• The time is agreed when the account opens — it goes on the round sheet, not into a delivery window.
• Timed around Ilford so the van is not arriving into the worst of it.
• If a drop is missed, a missed window here is picked up on the next round rather than the next week.
• A relief driver inherits the window with the route — holidays and sickness are the usual cause of a missed slot elsewhere; here the slot travels with the round sheet.

No long-term tie-in and no exit fee.

• Terms flex with seasonal demand — you are not held to a peak figure through a quiet quarter.
• Nothing needs you to be out of your current contract first — we will size your brigade while you are still under someone else.
• Stock arrives before the old supplier is stood down — you are never between suppliers.
• If it is not working, say so — we would rather correct the account than lose it.

Both, and mixed accounts are normal. The two sit on one invoice and one round.

• Hire — we own the garments, replace them on wear and manage sizing as the brigade changes.
• Wash-only — garment for garment, never substituted.
• Plenty of kitchens do both — hire what nobody reads, keep your own name on the whites.
• You can move a line between the two later — it is a change to the sheet, not a new agreement.

Yes — kitchen soil is classified separately from front of house.

• Grease, protein and scorch need their own wash — one cycle cannot serve all three, which is why a general programme leaves all three behind.
• Whites never run through the cycle the table linen was on — that transfer is what dulls a brigade's whites inside a month.
• Colour-coded cloths stay in their own classification — from collection to the rail, so the coding still means something when it comes back.
• Every load is temperature logged — so there is a record behind the classification rather than an assurance.

It is quoted, not tariffed. Kitchen work is priced on the brigade and the covers, so a published list would be a guess.

• We count a real week in Cranbrook before quoting — rather than pricing off your last invoice.
• No minimum order — size barely moves the per-garment price.
• The count includes your busy season — which is where most estimates fall over; a figure taken in February will not survive August.
• The count and the quote cost nothing — there is no cost to finding out what it would look like.

Yes, and they are not an afterthought on a restaurant round.

• 16 school kitchens around IG1 are already on the round — so term-time volume changes are planned rather than improvised.
• 3 care home kitchens nearby — sites that need an audit trail get colour-coded cloths and named whites as standard.
• Colour-coded cloths and named whites — so the coding still means something when the cloths come back.
• Contract caterers running several sites — get one account manager and staggered collection days across the group.

Sizing is where most kitchen accounts go wrong, so we do it on site.

• Every section is sized at setup — larder and pastry do not wear through jackets at the same rate, and the count reflects that.
• A new commis goes on the account the same week — brigades in Cranbrook change constantly, and the account is built for that.
• Garments are named — so nobody is sorting a mixed box at the start of a shift.
• Par counts are re-set after the first month — and again after your first busy season, which is where opening figures usually fail.