“With five tunnel washers in a row, the production can keep on growing!”

Welcome to Utrecht
It's a nice day to welcome the new tunnel washer at the family-owned laundry Van Der Kleij. Founded in 1859 in Utrecht, Netherlands, Van der Kleij has been providing hospitality linen for more than 160 years. Bed, bath, table, and kitchen linen is the core business of Gerard, Daan and Koos van der Kleij. 

Utrecht is the fourth-largest city in the very center of mainland Netherlands with around 350,000 inhabitants. Thanks to its central position within the country, it is an important hub for both rail and road transport and contains the busiest train station in the Netherlands, Utrecht Centraal. The central position is also of advantage for collecting and delivering the linen to Van der Kleij’s customers with their own fleet.

On this blue and sunny day, Van der Kleij welcomes their fifth tunnel washer, their second JENSEN Senking Universal P50-20 BlueEdition especially for table linen.

“The new tunnel washer is installed! With the installation of the fifth tunnel washer, we can organize the current washing process even more efficiently,” says Gerard van der Kleij. “With the design of our new building in 2015, the installation of new machines has already been taken into account. The locations in the building were already determined in advance, but also where a machine must be brought in. Through an opening at the side wall, the tunnel washer of no less than 18,000 kilograms (39,690 lbs.) was hoisted inside. What a moment!”

Tunnel Washer No. 5 leads to 500,000 kg (1,102,500 lbs.) per week

The more than 20 years of trustful cooperation between the laundry Van der Kleij and JENSEN, today in the person of Sales Manager Ilja Buunk, contributed to the fact that the requirements could be defined quickly. It quickly became clear that the BlueEdition would add additional value to Van der Kleij's machine park.

The Senking Universal BlueEdition tunnel washer needs only 1.6 liters of fresh water per kilogram (.192 gallons/lb.) of linen. This value has been confirmed directly at the first BlueEdition ever directly at Van der Kleij by an external and independent institute, the WfK Institute. Being witness of the very good test results, Van der Kleij became a fan of the BlueEdition and chose it again as their fifth JENSEN continuous batch washer.

The BlueEdition technology enables absolutely low water consumption thanks to the patented rinsing process and the excellent water recovery concept. The water and detergent supply is based on actual item sizes, resulting in very low consumption values. A solution to reduce starch as much as possible in a sustainable way contributes as well to achieve the set goals. Additional tanks, pumps and filters are also part of the BlueEdition. This means that more press water can be reused in the rinsing zone and only a small amount of fresh water needs to be added. Two separate countercurrent processes are used in the rinsing zone. The first rinsing process uses reclaimed press water, while the second rinsing process uses only fresh water. 

The patented QuickSoak option offers an additional shower for the linen in the first compartment – to maximize the soaking process and achieve excellent washing results. Van der Kleij can process a wide range of types of linen, whilst keeping consumption extremely low, and achieving top washing results and utmost productivity. As QuickSoak does not use any resources, no supplies are wasted.

The brand-new, patented UVClean system is now already installed in the new tunnel washer. UVClean automatically prevents bacteria from growing in the double drum areas, and focuses on hygiene without the addition of any chemicals. The low-maintenance system ensures the highest levels of hygiene through an environmentally-friendly preparation process. The first tests of UVClean have been carried out also at Van der Kleij – as a retrofit at one of their existing tunnel washers. For this, the JENSEN development team used defined germinated DesValiG test specimens of the wfk Institute for Applied Research (wfk-iaf.de/en/). Via test flanges, the test specimens were inserted into the shell of an outer drum at different distances from the radiation source. The irradiation took place for a defined duration. The test specimens were then sent to the wfk Institute for evaluation and showed the effectiveness of eliminating bacteria with UVClean.

The machine has two LintEx filters, which improve the quality of the water to be recycled and take into account the higher recovery rate. These filters remove all lint and additionally that dirt which is bound to the lint. By increasing the filtration by two filters, the dirt removal is higher. Thus, less chemistry needs to be added.

The BlueEdition approach is unique in the market and lifts up the productivity of Van der Kleij to the next level.

Together with the new water extraction press SEP 50 MD, the CakeBreaker CB 1000 and five new dryers DT 120 Gas, the concept is second to none. In laundries like Van der Kleij that process high volumes of high-quality laundry, the return on investment exceeds all other machine types simply because of the water savings.

Innovation and improvement are paramount

“My personal objective is to change the image of the laundry industry. For a long time, it was supposed to be dusty, non-hygienic and that staff had to work under poor conditions, “ says Gerard van der Kleij, “This is outdated in various ways. One of these ways is to share as much information as possible about our company in which innovation and improvement are paramount.”

Today, Van der Kleij process 500,000 kg of linen per week with more than 200 employees in a period of 5 days a week. Van der Kleij can now go back to normal production hours thanks to the productivity increase of tunnel washer No. 5. 

“With five tunnel washers in a row, the production can keep on growing!” says Daan van der Kleij. 
A true win-win situation for both laundry and staff.