Our responsibility

We have all been affected by the Covid pandemic, none less so than the hospitality sector, it was knocked for six when restauranteurs and hoteliers were forced to shut their doors, this in turn affected so many other suppliers that support the industry and our brand Cleaner Products was left very exposed as over 85% of our turnover was in this sector.

We are a supplier to many of the leading operators in the hospitality sector, we are a manufacturer of cleaning and hygiene products and our first dilemma was how to evolve short term, how were we going to manipulate our set up to survive such a devastating blow, what about our valued employees who have helped us build the business, and what about our loyal clients who have had their business’s ripped apart. The feeling of responsibility was immense and we had very little time to implement the changes we needed to make.

Thankfully, being a family run business we are a nimble operation and our CEO Nathan Reilly had the insight to purchase a large stock-pile of alcohol to enable us to manufacture hand sanitisers and PPE which he knew would be in high demand. All we had to do then was to steer our marketing in another direction and the obvious sector was healthcare, we did this and it was a great move. 

We were not able to maintain our complete staffing levels but with the help from the government we have been able to furlough some of our team and will now be able to survive this catastrophe. It is very reassuring to know that we will live to fight another day and clients are already starting to plan their return and although many aspects of business will be different we will all live to tell the tale.

I am a great believer in the saying “you don’t give to receive” but it is my belief that our fortunes changed when my son Nathan donated all the masks we had in stock to Kent County Council for use in their social and special needs care. Not only did this give us the feeling that we were giving vital help where it was most needed, but it also gave us a satisfying feeling knowing we were putting our business and manufacturing skills to the best use, we felt responsible and had to make sure we would return.

We have already been spending time with clients helping them establish new hygiene protocols and have been contacted by some big name brands that are looking to use our services, we are very confident that the future will be positive for us and the majority of our friends in the hospitality business, bring it on.