From small beginnings, the Universal Towel Company (UTC) has grown from its London-based roots in 1957.
The company’s new premises in Tunbridge Wells provides the firm with ample warehousing and office facilities that support each of its divisions.
UTC has manufacturing partnerships in the US, Italy, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, supplying Britain, Europe and Scandinavia with a range of products as diverse as commercial shop towels, soaps, air freshener dispensers and kitchen linen.
UTC was originally launched as a home-grown rival to the American-made roller towel cabinets which started to dominate the washroom market in the 1960s. The company pioneered the sector in the UK, going on to develop the washroom service industry.
At the heart of this development was the introduction of the company’s Supawash machine which enabled laundries to automatically process continuous roller towels for the first time.
The towels were also redesigned for processing purposes with the so-called “candy stripes”, to be followed later on by “ombre” designs which had a wide central stripe fading to the edge of the towel.
Both the Supawash machine and the prospect of having coloured towels instead of plain white or blue in the corporate washrooms, were ideas which soon caught on.
With the introduction of the plastic roller towel cabinet, UTC was soon established as the market leader.
The sale of UTC’s own towel service to Sketchley followed and the foundations of the modern washroom rental industry were firmly laid.
Amidst all this activity, Tony Filer, UTC’s managing director and an advocate of laundry and rental services, left his role as employee of the company in order to to set up the San Cheong Textile Company in Hong Kong.
Although he has now bought UTC, Mr Filer remains a partner in this Far East business, which has now been relocated to mainland China.
Largest continuous roller towel manufacturer
It produces over 80 000 roller towels/ month and is claimed to be the largest manufacturer of continuous roller towel worldwide.
The company employs over 400 people in its 85 000 sq ft production unit where the working standards are to ISO 9002.
Recently, Sweden’s Tvättman laundry company was awarded the coveted Nordic Swan mark, based, it is said, on UTC’s high calibre cabinet towels.
The company is soon planning to announce the launch of its Antibac bacteria-resistant cabinet towel, which it hopes, will elevate the rental washroom market onto an even higher plane during the next millennium.
In 1990 Mr Filer acquired Universal Towel Company and set about rebuilding the business. Although the name remains the same, it is now more simply styled and better known as UTC.
This subtle name change better reflects the transformation of the nature of the company from being 100% laundry orientated to a business which also has major interest in the washroom and janitorial markets.
While the laundry division maintains UTC’s position as the UK’s largest supplier of roller towels, the janitorial division vies with it for the major share of turnover.
The establishment of the janitorial division less than five years ago began with a range of soaps and paper dispensers imported from Italy. A range of washroom hygiene products from around the world were later added.
Soon, the company outgrew its premises near Heathfield, south of the Ashdown forest in Sussex.
A London office, with substantial warehousing for both the laundry and janitorial divisions was opened, but, with burgeoning janitorial sales, even this soon became a tight fit. In addition, the impracticalities of operating one main office for laundry and another for janitorial soon became apparent. So, the decision was taken to consolidate all divisions under one roof.
The growth in the business has also been supported by additional sales and office personnel with specific product area responsibilities which combine over 90 years’ experience.
During a time when washroom hygiene has literally been transformed by technological developments, UTC’s product range now includes heat-sensitive towel cabinets, liquid soap dispensers offering a variety of perfumes and applications, such as medical and food preparation, use-control toilet tissue dispensers, washroom fragrance dispensers and odour neutralisers.
