Uniform Industry News

March 14, 2009 - Despite the grim state of the global economy, businesses still want their retail spaces and workplaces to be clean and their employees to present a neat, professional appearance.

That reality offers opportunities for three Twin Cities-based companies that might be regarded as a local "clean team." Yet they, too, are adapting to the recession that's hobbled some of their business customers.

Ecolab, the biggest player in the trio, had $6.1 billion in net sales last year. It makes an array of products for cleaning and sanitizing that it sells to companies ranging from hospitals to hotels. Tennant Co., which generated $701 million in revenue last year, makes industrial-sized large floor cleaning machines. Rounding out the group is G&K Services, which hit the $1 billion revenue mark in fiscal 2008 that ended in June. G & K supplies uniforms to a wide variety of employers as well as products ranging from floor mats to dust mops.

Shares of all three have plummeted from their high values in September.

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