European laundry service leader sets up plant in Barcelona

The European leader in laundry services Elis Manomatic inaugurated a new industrial dry-cleaning centre in Barcelona on Thursday. It will cater to the laundry needs of around 40% of the hotels and restaurants in the city and surrounding area.

It’s already up and running, with 100 people employed there. In the next “two or three years,” however, the company foresees it will create a total of 200 jobs at the plant. The installation is dedicated to the hotel and restaurant sector, but the French company did not set up the centre on a whim.

“We began the project three years ago when we noticed there was very potent growth in the hotel sector in Barcelona,” explained the general director of Elis in Spain, Romain Dupuy.

The facility cost 22 million euros, and its creation marks the first time that Elis has set up an industrial dry-cleaning centre from scratch, highlighted Dupuy. It is also Elis’ most technologically-advanced plant of its kind on a worldwide scale. New machinery can handle 130 kilos of clothes in 90 seconds. “That is a lot,” said Dupuy.

For every kilo cleaned, only four and a half litres of water are consumed. A household washing machine usually uses 40 litres of water. Located in the Zona Franca industrial area of Barcelona, this is the French company’s third plant in Catalonia.

As it stands, the installations take up 13,000 square metres of a plot of more than 26,000 square metres, thus giving it the possibility to increase production. According to Dupuy, the plant exclusively serve its biggest clients. These are hotels and restaurants in Barcelona. It may, however, supply the south of Catalonia and Tarragona area in the future