Our Hotels – Reed Family Linen

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EARN REWARDS

Our Hotels

Our linens are used in hotels across the world, but the Reed family started supplying bed linen directly to hotels by accident.

On our regular annual holiday to France in 1965, the flight from Southampton to Cherbourg was delayed by fog and the family overnighted at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne. Mark’s 10-year-old sister left a pair of woollen socks to dry on the electric bar fire and burned down our hotel room. As part of the ensuing negotiations, Mark’s father offered to furnish the hotel with new bed linen as compensation – a smart business idea which saved him money and grew into what is still the largest volume sector of our business today.

Images: Singita, Sabora Tened Camp

 

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The Cornerstone of Cost Effectiveness

What hoteliers sometimes struggle to understand is that the superior durability of our linen makes us much more cost effective than many competitor products. The boil washes achieved by some cheaper linen hire bed sheets are as low as two hundred, but their cost is only half that of Reed Family Linen, which means that these sheets are twice as expensive on a cost per night basis.

SUPPLIER ITEM DESCRIPTION SIZE cms INDICATIVE COST PRICE excl VAT LIFE SPAN IN NUMBER OF BOIL WASHES EFFECTIVE “Cost per Night” INDEX
Reed Family Linen 200 Thread Count  King Size Sheet 275 x 295 £ 47.45 800 6 UK pence per night
Linen Hire alternative 180 Thread Count King Size Sheet 270 x 270 £ 24.00 200 12 UK pence per night
SUPPLIER Reed Family Linen
ITEM DESCRIPTION 200 Thread Count  King Size Sheet
SIZE cms 275 x 295
INDICATIVE COST PRICE excl VAT £ 47.45
LIFE SPAN IN NUMBER OF BOIL WASHES 800
EFFECTIVE “Cost per Night” INDEX 6 UK pence per night
SUPPLIER Linen Hire alternative
ITEM DESCRIPTION 180 Thread Count King Size Sheet
SIZE cms 270 x 270
INDICATIVE COST PRICE excl VAT £ 24.00
LIFE SPAN IN NUMBER OF BOIL WASHES 200
EFFECTIVE “Cost per Night” INDEX 12 UK pence per night

As John Ruskin said, “The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.” When we explain to General Managers and independent hotel owners that a set of our Egyptian cotton bed linen costs around 35 pence per night, which is often less than one tenth of a percent of their rack room rate, they are incredulous. But the truth is that quality is cheaper in terms of bed linen in the long run.

Our product durability and “Cost per Night” metrics are so important to us that we are continually monitoring our bedlinen’s usage wherever we can. Recently we undertook a laundry review for one of our game lodge customers in the Kruger Park, South Africa, who have been using our dyed Percale sheeting fabric for the past nine years. Their statistics showed an average of 577 boil washes per item based on a low 2.3 par stock – indicating an average lifespan of 3 to 5 years in harsh laundering conditions in the African bush.

Understanding What Hotels Want

Since the Eastbourne incident, we have learned a thing or two about how hoteliers and launderers view their bed linen. They want comfort for their guests, easy launderability and bed-making for their staff, and cost effectiveness for their General Manager. And usually in the reverse order. At Reed Family Linen, we have always produced some of the world’s most comfortable bed linen, so our efforts have been focused largely on improving launderability and offering value for hotel clients.

Proving Our Unrivalled Durability

Our cornerstone 200 and 400 thread count single yarn cloths have always performed well in tough commercial laundering environments. Their symmetrical weaving constructions and use of long staple fibres deliver unrivalled durability and longevity in the industry. Many professionally managed hotels still maintain housekeeping records which log the laundering of each item – much of this data has now been automated with RFID tagging of all pieces of linen, including napkins. Regularly REED linens achieve on average over 800 boil washes per item which is equivalent to eight years usage at 80% occupancy on a 3-par stock. Pillowcases achieve less washes (closer to 500) as they are subjected to much more wear and tear during bed making, and ironing at the edge of Oxford flanges is often the part of the product which breaks down first.

Images: Singita Ebony Lodge

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A Testimonial to Our Quality

A classic example of how famous our linen’s durability is in the hotel industry, is that of The Ritz Hotel in London. One astute housekeeper there worked out that it would be cheaper to order our king size flat sheets with an extra 10” in length and then return these after five years when the top and bottom hems began to unravel as the sewing thread fell apart for the mill to cut them down and re-hem them at standard length. In this way she achieved ten years use out of our sheets – a record!

Unique Options for Hoteliers

One other unique feature of our service to hoteliers is that we can offer dyed bed linen to suit your décor subject to relatively small quantities and have provided this for several small lodge properties – stock bed linen colours like our Nude, Dachshund and Cornstalk started in this way.

Following Peter Reed’s good fortune at The Grand Hotel in Eastbourne, Reed Family Linen went on to become the supplier of choice for the hotel sector of ‘Country House Hotels’ which expanded in England, Wales & Scotland copying the success of The Sharrowbay Hotel on Ullswater where Francis Coulson opted for a unique design of embroidered bed linen in each suite based on Lakeland flora. Our company’s flexibility, attention to detail and capability to offer bespoke bed and table linen to boutique hotels continues to be one our company’s key marketing points and our clients include members of Relais & Chateaux, Pride of Britain, Belmond, Singita and many other prestige properties throughout the world.

Whatever your hotel requirements in terms of bed or table linen, then please contact us for a tailored solution for your hotel laundering requirements. As well as providing your guests with the ultimate sleeping experience, we also guarantee that we can save money on a “Cost per Night” basis.

 

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