The British are a stalwart bunch. But these days there’s a noticeable tremor in that stiff upper lip.

For the last year the United Kingdom’s (UK) commercial laundry industry, with £1.2 billion (US$1.4 billion) in sales, has enjoyed buoyancy and sector growth of plus 5%. Within a week of Covid-19 strengthening its ugly grip on life and the economy, many were already anecdotally reporting 7%-30% reductions in volumes. As the virus rampaged nationwide, it rapidly revised losses upward. Then it stopped doing the sums altogether. At this writing, industry pundits could only report “cash flows under review.”

No one can ...