The partnership
Inside Alpha Linen
Sixty thousand sheets a day, a fourteen-tonne press and an ironing line that costs $1.8 million to install. A walk through the Gosford laundry that supplies every bed we make — and why it will not take on other short-stay operators.
Read the transcript
We are here at Alpha Linen Supply, which is our linen provider in Gosford. They are the biggest provider on the Central Coast. We have been working with them for many years and they are really good partners of ours. We are going to show you their factory today. We are here with the owner, Philip, and he is going to show you around, show us some of the machines.
Philip: We have been operating the last 28 years. This is pretty much the end point — that is our towel folder, and we have two others on the other side. The towels are sorted, washed and dried, and it comes to the fold. All the sheets and pillowcases come straight out of the tunnel wash, the CBW, the continuous batch wash. Staff feed the machine, the machine spreads, dries, irons and folds, and it comes out as a complete product.
Alex: How long did it take you to set up this whole operation?
Philip: This big, the last eight years.
Alex: I noticed there is not much shrinkage in your linen. How come?
Philip: We have been operating on a commercial scale, and we are using nine different chemicals. We are not drying on the strength of electricity — it is either steam or gas. That gives the right composition of the dryer, and the drum is filled so it will not be squeezed. It has to keep that form and the fluffiness of the towels. That is why we keep the commercial grade at the top. As for the Australian standard in New South Wales, we are on the second top for quality and service. That is a guarantee, that is a service we guarantee.
Alex: How many pieces of linen are you turning through per day?
Philip: Per day we have been processing maybe around 60,000 sheets on the peak summer days, and the towels will be probably around 105,000 to 110,000.
Alex: These machines are not cheap either.
Philip: These equipment are very expensive. For example, that ironing line alone — to install a new one today costs around $1.8 million. Just for that machine.
Philip: Let me take you down to the tunnel wash, which is called the continuous batch washer, CBW. This is where the real washing takes place. Once the staff sort it out — sheets, towels, pillowcases, bath mats, hand towels, face washers, all separately — every three to four minutes we have a cake coming out like this. That is a hydraulic press. Just that piece of equipment is 14 tonnes. That is what squeezes it completely to take the water out. It is purpose made, only for linen and soft items.
Philip: These are the nine compartments. Each compartment has different chemicals and that gives a different process and a different softness for the linen. All our linen is washed at 80 degrees Celsius, so it is completely decontaminated.
Alex: Tell me about your operation. How many hotels and businesses do you have?
Philip: We have been servicing more than 380.
Alex: And Airbnb operators like us?
Philip: We do not do much, but we help people like you. I am very happy to say that they have such a long relationship, and a good management system in operation — a very demanded business in the hospitality sector, and you have been doing it very well. I appreciate it.
Alex: We are here at one of our linen storages. You have seen now what our supplier does — where they wash it, they clean it, they pack it, and they deliver it here to one of our storage units. We have multiple units like this around the state.
Alex: This here is one of our clean storages, meaning the clean linen goes in here and gets packed. We have towel sets, king stripe sets, pillowcases, and all of these get packed into sets. This is an example of a set. We know exactly what this property has and the number of sets which are inside. We have team members who put all this together, and what that means is the cleaning teams just come in, take the set, and drop the dirty one in the unit next door. We also have consumables in here, and a solar powered security camera, so we know exactly who comes in, who goes out, and when it is all happening.
Alex: This is one of the cornerstones of how we run our business. The reason we do it like this, and do not just buy linen and take it to a laundromat, is that doing that has so many issues involved — and that is actually where we started. Laundromats are often not open on public holidays. They are not open on Sundays, which is our busiest time. Secondly, these types of sheets do not shrink. Laundromats often have such a short time period before they need to return the sheets that they do it on really high heat, and that high heat causes high shrinkage. You end up having to replace them very frequently, not even because they are dirty, just because they have shrunk.
Alex: To avoid all that mess we decided to hire these warehouses. Even though it is somewhat more expensive for us, we do get pretty good wholesale rates considering the volume we purchase and hire every single week.
Alex: I want to pull up something else, which is the end state of the clean. This is our cleaning management system. We have a dashboard of the cleans happening today, and we can go to the ones which happened yesterday. At each of these places there was a clean done, there was lawn mowing done. This is how we manage all tasks and maintenance in a property — each of them has their own requirements every single time.
Alex: When the clean gets done, our team goes in and checks all the photos and videos left by the contractor. It is only after we do the check and the approval that we actually pay. The problem this fixes is that a lot of the time, when people are starting out in this business or they are a smaller property manager, they do not have these systems in place. You do not actually know if your cleaner went in and cleaned the place. They may have said they did, but you do not know if they did a good job, or whether they did all the little things the owner asked for.
Alex: That was so critical. It is a genuinely difficult business, especially when you are managing properties that are three hours away and you cannot check it yourself. So one of the core things we decided to do was implement a system like this. Every single one of our contractors is on it. We can see when they started, when they ended, how long it took, and all the invoices are imported in as well. That is how we make sure properties are guest ready every single time.
Linen is the least glamorous line in a short-stay P&L and one of the most revealing. It is where the difference between a house that reads as a hotel and a house that reads as a share flat actually lives, and it is where most operators quietly lose money without noticing.
So it is worth showing rather than claiming. This is Alpha Linen in Gosford, the laundry that supplies every bed we make up, and the storage units where that linen is counted into sets before it reaches a house.
A laundry built for hotels
Alpha Linen has been running for 28 years, and at its present scale for the last eight. It services more than 380 hotels and hospitality businesses along the coast. On a peak summer day it processes around 60,000 sheets and between 105,000 and 110,000 towels.
The equipment is the reason those numbers are possible. Sheets go through a continuous batch washer — a tunnel — and come out every three to four minutes as a compressed cake, wrung by a hydraulic press that weighs 14 tonnes. Nine separate compartments hold nine different chemicals, so a bath mat and a pillowcase are not treated the same way. Everything is washed at 80°C, which is a decontamination standard rather than a cleanliness one.
The ironing line alone, its owner Dr Babu Philip told us, costs about $1.8 million to install new.
We are not drying on the strength of electricity — it is either steam or gas. That gives the right composition of the dryer, and the drum is filled so it will not be squeezed. It has to keep that form and the fluffiness of the towels.
Why the machinery is the whole argument
That detail about steam and gas sounds like plant trivia. It is actually the economics of the category.
Domestic and laundromat drying runs hot and fast because the operator is turning stock around against a deadline. High heat shrinks cotton. Shrunk sheets no longer fit the bed, so they get replaced — not because they are worn or stained, but because they no longer work. That replacement cycle is a recurring cost most owners never see itemised, and it is the reason linen budgets creep.
Alpha Linen is graded second from the top in New South Wales against the Australian standard for quality and service. Sheets that come back the same size they left are not a luxury; they are the cheaper option over any horizon longer than a season.
The part that is hard to copy
A laundry at this scale is built for hotels, and it is set up to serve hotels. Alpha Linen does not, as a rule, take short-stay operators on. When Alex asked on camera whether they work with Airbnb operators, the answer was that they do not do much of it — but they help people like us.
That is the piece of this business that is genuinely difficult to replicate. Anyone can buy linen. Very few short-stay managers on this coast can put it through a hotel laundry, and the relationship that makes it possible took years rather than a purchase order.
What happens on our side
Clean linen is delivered to storage units we hold around the state. Each has a clean side and, next door, a dirty one.
In the clean unit, linen is counted into sets per property — towel sets, king stripe sets, pillowcases — assembled by our own team, so a set carries exactly what that house needs and nothing else. A cleaner arrives, takes the set for the house they are servicing, and drops the used one next door. Consumables sit with them. A solar-powered camera records who comes in and when.
It is unglamorous, and it is the reason a bed is made with the right linen in the right quantity on a Sunday in January.
Why not simply use a laundromat
Because we did, at the start, and it does not survive contact with the calendar.
Laundromats close on Sundays and public holidays. Those are precisely the days a short-stay portfolio turns over. The heat problem above then compounds it: fast turnaround forces high heat, high heat shrinks stock, and shrunk stock is replaced at the owner's expense.
Holding warehouse space costs more per month than the alternative. Against wholesale rates on the volume we buy and launder weekly, and against a replacement cycle that never starts, it is the cheaper structure.
And then somebody checks
Supply is only half of it. The other half is knowing the work was actually done.
Every contractor we use is on one cleaning management system. It shows the cleans scheduled today and the ones completed yesterday, per property, with each house's own requirements attached — a clean, a lawn mown, a specific thing an owner asked for. The contractor uploads photographs and video when they finish. Our team reviews them, and only after that review is the contractor paid. Start and finish times are recorded and invoices flow into the same place.
The problem this solves is the one that catches smaller managers: you cannot tell whether a cleaner went in, or whether they did the job properly, and you certainly cannot tell from three hours away. Verification before payment is the only version of this that holds.
What owners ask about this
Do I have to buy the linen for my house?
No. Linen is hired and laundered through Alpha Linen at the wholesale rates our volume attracts, so you carry no stock and no replacement cycle.
What happens if a set goes missing or is damaged?
Sets are counted in and out of the storage units, so a shortfall is visible immediately rather than at the end of a season. Replacement comes out of the pooled stock, not out of your house.
Does this work outside the Central Coast?
The storage model does — we hold units across the state and the set system is the same in each. Alpha Linen services the coast; other regions are supplied to the same standard through equivalent commercial laundries.
