OXWASH CREATES A CLEAN SHEET FOR INNOVATION

Why would a former bio scientist who worked for NASA set up a laundry business? Washing other people’s bedsheets, towels and smalls isn’t the most alluring occupation.

That’s why it’s ripe for innovation, according to Kyle Grant who set up Oxford-based Oxwash in 2018.

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“One of my mentors said he made his biggest impact in the pensions industry,” said Kyle. “You might not tell someone you were dating you worked in pensions, but in sectors such as these, which may not have undergone innovation for years, you can make a massive impression.”

Kyle set up Oxwash while completing a PhD at Oxford University. He regularly had to deal with broken washing machines in his college laundry, and having an entrepreneurial frame of mind, he decided that solving his shortterm problem could present a bigger business opportunity.

Others agree. Last year Oxwash secured £1.75 million from a variety of investors.

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The laundry sector is antiquated, according to Kyle. While the equipment had seen some innovation, there has been no paradigm shift in the model, either in laundry practices or consumer habit. “At the moment everyone has a washing machine at home. We want people to outsource their laundry. No-one has a rubbish dump in their back garden but sending it to a waste reclamation centre makes sense.”

Kyle launched the business with just the software, a bike and backpack, collecting dirty washing from fellow students and arranging its laundry. Oxwash uses bikes in the same way as Deliveroo: it’s quick, efficient and the cyclists can do lots of loops around the same area during the day.

The business has expanded to Cambridge and London. Everything is collected and returned by electric bike and washed sustainably in one of the company’s “lagoons” (they’re not called laundries).

The company initially outsourced the washing to external laundries. But partnering with other laundries was a nightmare. “Every laundry washes differently: different washing systems, smells, folds – so we decided to own the whole thing from collection to washing and redelivery,” said Kyle.

Oxwash built its first lagoon in Osney Mead, central Oxford. The technology concentrated on reclaiming water from the wash cycle and filtering microfibres.

To get something clean you need water, chemistry, heat and movement. All these overheads incur cost, so Oxwash came at the process from a different direction.

Kyle explained: “We looked at technologies which allow us to wash cold and still get an award-winning result. We use ozone to achieve that –deodorising and disinfecting the laundry at the same time, and we are trialling other processes such as new types of enzyme chemistry and formulations which don’t have all the nasties in like phosphates, bleaches and optical brighteners – all those additives which typically Tippex over problems but don’t actually take out the stains and smells.”

Sustainability is great, but reliability wins customers

While customers say they put a lot of emphasis on sustainability, the real reason they use Oxwash is that the company is good at the basics: quality, reliability and service.

“There’s no point being the best in the world at sustainability and the chemistry you use if the finished product and service isn’t good,” said Kyle “So we put a lot of emphasis on doing it right every time, with the sustainability in the background.”

The first Covid-19 lockdown last March hit Oxwash hard when hospitality and catering outlets shut down.

But Kyle quickly realised the business could just as efficiently serve healthcare, care homes and science labs.

Pandemic pivot opens up new opportunities

“We secured accreditation for these sectors, which needed a lot of lab testing. That was super cool and took me back to my days of being a life scientist.

“We now have a decent customer base in healthcare and scientific. We did the laundry for labs and companies involved with the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine trial. We also do some GP surgeries.”

There are some drawbacks to using bicycles (and Oxwash does just use bicycles, it doesn’t own a van). You can’t send a cyclist up the busy A34 to Milton

Park near Abingdon delivering laundry to science labs.

Retro-fitting an old industrial unit isn’t the solution either – it’s too expensive, so the team is looking at designing lagoons in shipping containers. The inspiration for these was the “dark kitchens” pioneered by Deliveroo – pop-ups parked in car parks where chefs prepare food for delivery.

“A pop-up lagoon could be located in a hospital car park, or anywhere to serve a local community,” said Kyle.

Cleaning up in the vintage fashion sector

And there’s another big opportunity emerging for Oxwash in supporting the growing trend of fashion rental, vintage upcycling and charity donations.

According to Ebay, sales of secondhand fashion soared during lockdown. Between January and September last year, 12 million people in the UK purchased a “pre-loved” item. Think Depop, Thrift+, Refashion and Farfetch. Don’t dump your second-hand clothes at a charity shop, make money out of them – but they have to be clean.

And with the market for secondhand clothing growing, so are the expectations of the consumer. “We want to take these clothes, upcycle them and make them look as good as new,” said Kyle.

Longer term, he sees Oxwash expanding out from laundry.

“We are washing clothes now but sooner than we might think, everything we buy – from food containers to cosmetic make-up containers won’t go to landfill, some of it will be recycled, more will be washed and reused.

“You don’t sleep in your sheets and then throw them away, so why do we do it with coffee cups? I see us moving into fast moving consumer goods.”