Cleanzine: your weekly cleaning and hygiene industry newsletter 18th April 2024 Issue no. 1110
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While I applaud companies that have impressed awards' judges with their innovative products, you have to be - as the saying goes - 'in it to win it'. So often when I'm walking around exhibitions, I'm astonished that some of the products I see haven't been entered into the competition and thus miss out on the recognition as well as the resulting publicity. Even if your product hasn't made the shortlist, its attributes will have been noted by the judges, one or more of whom may end up being a customer or may, through word of mouth, bring in new customers.
Knowing what I'm about to write next, I'm worried I may appear to be 'having a dig' but that's not the case. There are many valid reasons why manufacturers won't enter awards - costs and time factors being just two; while some products aren't quite ready to 'show off' by the submissions deadline and when the next round of awards come up, the technology is already familiar to us.
Of the many innovations at the show (and yes - there were a lot) it was this cloth being brandished by Vernon Holmes that made me exclaim: "Why didn't someone think of that before!"
One procedure I learnt during my British Institute of Cleaning Science cleaning training is that we mustn't just scrunch a cloth but should fold it meticulously, the idea being that we use one surface, then change the way the cloth is folded to reveal another clean surface and so on and so forth, until all the surfaces have been used. This means there's a greater connection between the cloth and the surface been cleaned and it saves time in the long run because both sides of the cloth are used in their entirety, resulting in fewer visits to the water/chemical source for rinsing/ringing/replenishing, as well as less chemical wastage.
Sometimes it's difficult to get the message across to the cleaners and I know that when under pressure or cleaning something particularly dirty, it can be difficult to forget which of the folds you've used and which you haven't.
The cloth Vernon was holding didn't need any explanation. If you can count, it will work for you! Available from IIC Products (Innovation In Cleaning: 01743 283606 / [email protected] / www.iicproducts.com ) it takes my award for 'The one that got away'!
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Yours,
28th March 2019