Fishers Dependable Workwear and Cleanroom

In addition to the flatwork – hotel bed linen, towels and so on – that Fishers is perhaps best known for, the company launders more than 50,000 garments every week for customers in a whole range of sectors.

This work falls into two broad categories – workwear for food processors, engineering firms, hospitals and even family-run garages, and a specialist cleanroom service for pharmaceutical, medical research and compugraphics companies, where sterile garments are a must-have.

Unlike the hospitality industry, these sectors stayed busy during the Covid lockdowns – indeed one of Fishers’ cleanroom customers is involved in the production of a Covid-19 vaccine – and Fishers moved heaven and earth to meet their needs during these times.

Fishers’ focuses sharply on quality, with a number of standards in place to ensure that they meet, or even exceed customers’ expectations. Here’s what Kelly Fox, Fishers’ Garment Business Manager, who oversees both the cleanroom and workwear operations, had to say:

“Our cleanroom facility is the only facility of its kind in Scotland offering ISO 4, 5 and 8 processing capabilities. We deliver to a wide range of customers in both sterile and non-sterile environments so this means we can offer irradiation should this be required. We deliver all over the UK from Inverness to Newquay and we can offer certificates of conformity and certificates of irradiation upon request.”

“Separate to the cleanroom department our workwear department caters for a wide range of customers. But most of what we do caters for the food industry. We process through our high clean department – this means that we are processing within an area that is free from contaminants.”

“We operate through a quality management system, ISO 9001 and we also hold ISO 14001 and EN 14065.”

But it’s Fishers’ ability to adjust to meet the specific needs of their customers that helps differentiate them from other laundries. Here’s Kelly again:

“We also offer a bespoke service, so we can provide garments that are unique to that customer. We work with a number of suppliers to make sure we can give them exactly what they need and we can also tailor it for individual users, whereas in comparison in flatwork, most of what we do is pooled stock.”

But as the country looks to put the Covid lockdowns behind us, what exercises Fishers’ garments customers most? Kelly puts it down to two criteria:

“Our customers need the security, now more than ever, that the garments that are being returned to them are clean and free from contamination. Our accreditations help put their minds at ease in that respect. They also need reliability. Obviously this is a really difficult time for everyone and they need to be confident that they will receive what they need and when they need it from Fishers just to ensure that there’s not any additional pressure put onto them, and that’s what we can deliver.”

So, in this post lockdown environment it seems that a focus on quality, the ability to flex to meet customers’ needs, doing a good job and being super-reliable are what will stand Fishers in good stead with its garments customers.