Where is the Janitorial Supply Distribution Industry going?

Going going gone?

Not for now?

Not forever.  My thoughts?  We are about to go through a sanitary supply renascence!

Sounds kind of goofy, but I think it is reality.  When I was straight out of school and entering the work world the Janitorial Supply industry was booming with over 1500 distributors in Canada and 30,000 in the US.  Now?  The numbers have greatly changed in the past 25 years.  

In Canada five national players dominate the marketplace.  Literally eight years ago a national big box chain decided to enter the Sanitation market.  Due to a recent acquisition effort this chain had to give up a sizable portion of their business to become dominant in their original marketplace.  What part did they offer up?  Their least profitable of course.  Although this has yet to be finalized the real news is the potential spin off was 650 million in net sales.  To many of us billions sound like millions used to just a few years ago.  Considering that the North American market for Sanitation products is somewhere between 6 and 20 billion dollars annually depending upon who posts the figures.  Most likely these numbers are a major underestimate.

The scary reality is that a company in ten years can literally own as much as ten percent of the market in eight years.  No doubt they have hired the best people they can get their hands on.  Implemented the best inventory and distribution techniques.  Getting products into the hands of the end user in less than 48 hours almost always with complete order fulfillment.  And always at market leading prices. 

What gives?  

Should I phone it in?  Take their next offer?

I don't think so.  Business always goes through cycles.  

My belief is that there will always be plenty of room for independent distributors.  True enough the Internet has made information available for everyone.  Endless amounts in fact.  If it is your nature to take the time to research and develop programs based upon advice offered for free by distributors that likely will never be able to fulfill your order.  

What happens when something goes wrong?

How do you solve it?

The answer is obvious.  You go to where you know you will get what you need.

The real question?  Will you continue to deal with the distributor who is there with the right answer and the right product?  Only you can answer that one.  

Floor Finish Demystified

You've taken your time stripped your floor to the base.  Cleaned all of your corners, stripped baseboards and rinsed your floor sufficiently.  

What next?

Who sets your expectations?

You, your supervisor, your co-workers?

This is most common the struggle in Floorcare.  It's easy to leave the floor after you've applied sealer if required and floor finish happy as a clam.  Every floor if done reasonably well looks great after it is done.  

The reality starts now.

The questions that need to be answered aren't all that new but they were best answered two stages ago.  

Do I want a floor that is, low maintenance? High gloss right away that is easily low speed burnished, a high gloss medium maintenance floor or the absolute optimum, a daily maintained floor with high to very high gloss appearance?  Regardless of your expectations you can't try every finish out there.  So where do you go?  Maybe the large National distributor?  Maybe the local building center or the big box store?  No matter where you get your products from you need to know what you are applying.  It is true large volume vendors offer you potential advice and support.  Decent selection, training resources and quite often specialists in each vertical. The internet has made knowledge readily available.  Is that knowledge accurate?  Is the information you have gotten relevant to your circumstance?  

Here is the case for your local janitorial distributor.

Can you find all of it when you need it?  If you have and can continuously find it....?  Is it the same product that was on the shelf last time you purchased?

Your decision making process in almost all cases is the difference between success and the longevity of your efforts.  Time is money when you are responsible for payroll.  Time is even more important when you have to redo your floor any sooner than you should.

Early next month I will produce a couple of articles with more answers. 

1. What did I do wrong?  

2. The top ten hints about Floorcare.

3. The incomplete guide to Floorcare. Rules for every floor finish.

Biologicals and hydrocarbon products

Tell me you saw this one coming out of a oil tanker crash.  In the late eighties a major oil spill happened in the North Pacific Ocean.  From all disasters there is a lesson and in my opinion this man-made disaster allowed the world a new solution to hydrocarbon spills the world over.  

While scientists cleaned up wildlife they noticed that a few localized areas had no oil or even signs of it.  The interesting result of this discovery?  A bacteria was isolated that has a tremendous hunger for all hydrocarbons.  Not just Brent crude.  But refined forms of oil offer this non-pathogenic bacteria a wonderful food source that results in nothing more than water and Carbon dioxide as an effluent.  Talk about amazing!

Ten years fast forward and this bacteria was farmed for the benefit of the rest of the world.  This bacteria blend offers odor control where gas spills have occurred.  Clean up after burst oil tanks.  Diesel spills are easily cleaned and buildings once slated for destruction are restored with minimal labour.  

We have manufactured two products with this bacteria for the last 6 or 7 years.  Both have earned us accolades from restoration contractors, Environmental engineering firms all over Ontario.  Households have been saved months of dealing with the ever present odor of stove oil.  If you are ever forced to deal with a petroleum mess. Contact us. We guarantee you will be impressed.

Below are a few images of a remediation demonstration we did.  Before and after.  Fourteen hours.  Wow.

Before 

During 

After

Biologicals for round the clock cleaning. Part I

Carpet Cleaning with Biologicals. 

Recently I cleaned a carpet in one of Niagara's busiest public establishments with a local Cleaning Contractor. The carpet was so deeply soiled that as you walked you could feel your feet re-gluing themselves to the surface of the floor.  Having been here before, I knew full well that carpet is without a doubt the biggest soil magnet.  Even after cleaning some carpets they seem like they haven't been cleaned. 

Carpet behaves like a wick.  Soil through nearly osmotic process becomes evenly saturated throughout the medium.  Once visibly cleaned many carpets will appear almost as bad as they were before they were cleaned shortly after they dry. Many carpet cleaners realize this and with their super powerful truck mounted machines use a shotgun to squash a fly.  Many times this process gives amazing results.

Back to my carpet cleaning adventure. We opted to use three different products to do our test trial. A high pH degreaser, a co solvent traffic lane cleaner and a mild biological carpet cleaner with live bacteria that produce enzymes.  All three locations showed similar soiling. Image #1 is a reasonable cross section of the entire carpet.

This carpet was treated at 8:00 am with Bio Power on the left half and allowed to stand.  Almost to the point where it was saturated.  Shortly after we applied a high pH degreaser to the right portion of the carpet.  At 8:45 we began cleaning the carpet using a truck mounted machine at 500 psi and 175 degrees F.  Keep in mind that this is a polypropylene carpet solution dyed.  Keep in mind, I am not an advocate of using degreasers to clean carpet.  

The end result is great all things considered.  Image #2 shows our results.  

No doubt in my mind that the high pH degreaser in the short term did a great job.  What the picture doesn't  show?  The colour is generally uniform.  Four hours later as the carpet was still saturated I noticed an improvement in the results on the biological side.  

The moral of the story is: Biologicals offer great results and use fewer harmful chemicals.  The risk of damage is nearly none.  Biologicals offer one even greater benefit.  They continue to clean long another you leave.  As most carpet cleaners know carpets stay wet for up to 16 hours after having been cleaned. As long as Biologicals have a food source and moisture they continue to do their thing. No doubt the results are not perfect.  All things considered a  vast improvement.  Carpets like this one would definitely benefit from monthly cleaning.

I recommend that you try Biopower to clean your carpets.  

Image#1

Image#2