Like laundry operators worldwide, Luke Gledhill, general manager of Johnsons Hotel Linen, Leeds, England, reacted to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic with a sense of “Can this really be happening?” But it did, and in his case, a newly opened facility that he’d eagerly anticipated running, abruptly closed. The plant reopened last year and staff are now dealing with the aftermath, including inflated costs and a shortage of labor to process flatwork for the company’s booming hotel clients.

“I remember it clearly,” he told us during a visit this summer that Textile Services made to several plants in the ...