2025 Best Canadian Plant Competition Winner!
Crouse’s Cleaners, Grand Prairie, AB
This is the second year we have held a competition to find examples of the greatest plants across Canada. Our competition is not all-inclusive: you have to nominate your plant, or someone else has to do it for you. The competitors were sent a standardized set of questions about their operations and we wrote an article featuring each plant, with lots of photos.
Our thanks and admiration for each of the plants that submitted their information and shared their stories. You are all winners, just for putting yourselves forward for scrutiny, and you shine in the Canadian industry.
Over the Counter Chapter 1
SERIES: Over the Counter book Serialized
Back in the good old days of publishing, books were often serialized in magazines and newspapers, and readers waited anxiously for each installment. Think Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol.
Marcia Miller Todd’s book, Over the Counter, is a training guide for counter personnel in dry cleaning plants. There is no other such resource out there that you can turn to if you want to train all your people uniformly. The book has recently been updated and brought out for a new generation by Jan Caon Barlow and Becca Anderson. Fabricare Canada will be publishing one chapter a month for the next 2 years.
OCTOBER ARTICLES
Five Stars for Laundry CEO Forum
By Becca Anderson
It would be impossible for me to convey all the information and experiences from the Laundry CEO Forum, held in Dallas, TX on October 5-7, 2025. There was so much knowledge shared among the participants and from the stage. If you are a laundromat owner and want to grow your business, get Laundry CEO Forum on your radar and make plans for next year. It will absolutely be worth the time and money you will invest.
Special reporting from the Laundry CEO Forum
Free Laundry Day Invasion
The CLA held one of its Free Laundry Day events in Dallas, TX on Sunday, October 5, 2025 in conjunction with the Laundry CEO Forum conference. The event lasted 2 hours, and dozens of customers were thrilled to come to the laundromat and find out there was no charge for the use of the washers and dryers that day.
You Are Not Alone
By Becca Anderson
I stopped in to chat with David Haick at Parker’s Cleaners in Oakville, ON the other day. I wanted to see how the average cleaner—the one-shop, family-owned, working day to day cleaner—was faring. That’s the bulk of the Canadian industry, so if it describes you, you are not alone in your struggles and victories.
SEPTEMBER SERIES — 2025 Best Canadian Plant Competition
Krazee Klean, Crazy Different
We have had very few entries so far in our competition this year, and I think it’s because people think their plant has be to beautiful to qualify. But different plants have different missions, and how they serve their customers is the key to a winning plant.
A great example of a purpose-driven plant is Krazee Klean, from Ft. Kent, Alberta. The entire clientele is made up of oil field workers, and it’s reputation among them is beyond reproach.
Series: 2025 Best Canadian Plant Competition
Crouse’s Cleaners: 3 Generations Wide and Deep
Some companies specialize in a particular segment of the market, while others cast their net wider. Crouse’s Cleaners in Grande Prairie, AB is one of the latter. They do everything from delicate personal garments to oily coveralls, and they do it all with a smile.
Read about why siblings David and Kathleen Crouse are proud enough of their company to nominate it for our 2025 Best Plants competition.
Busy Bee Gold Dry Cleaners — More than Clean Clothes
A Family Journey Since 1981
SERIES: Best Canadian Plant 2025 Competition
The story of Busy Bee Gold Dry Cleaners is not one of sudden fame or big breakthroughs. It’s a simple story of a family, a small shop, and a community that believed in us.
In 1981, Mohamud Rahim’s parents opened a modest dry cleaning store on West 6th Avenue in Vancouver. The shop was just 1,500 sq. ft., with two employees and a dream: to provide honest, reliable service to neighbors and friends. What they lacked in size, they made up for in care and dedication.
Page the Cleaner: 90 Years Strong
SERIES: Best Canadian Plant 2025 Competition
Page the Cleaner of Edmonton, AB was founded in 1935. They are justifiably proud that they are celebrating 90 years in the business this year. General Manager Rupinder Rudolph was delighted to hear her plant had been nominated to take part in this competition by Chris White of Kreussler.
Learning Together
We had our annual Seminars for Success last weekend at our office. The theme this year was Threading the Needle: Business Planning in Changing Times. We had a great turnout and some lively discussions.
Find out what was discussed, and why you need to start planning now to attend next Fall’s Seminars for Success.
How Showcasing Your Plant Can Be A Marketing Tool
By Linley McConnell
In the spirit of the Best Canadian Plant Competition, I ask you, when was the last time you proudly showed off your plant, not just to a sales representative, but to your customers, social media followers, or even local media? It’s easy to forget that our operations are fascinating to people who trust us with their wardrobes. But consider this: your plant isn’t just where the magic happens, it is the magic.
Why Great Cultures Keep Clients
By Francis Flair
This month, Francis gives you an example of how a popular fast food chain moved a friendliness mandate from training to being part of the company’s culture, and the result it has had.
“Too many leaders still think client retention belongs to the frontline. That if you hire ‘the right people’ or give a single training, the service will take care of itself. But retention doesn’t live in a script, it lives in the culture,” he says.
AUGUST SERIES — Clean Show!
Are You Serious??
Our columnist Kevin Marois is deadly serious about what it takes to be a dry cleaner — at least, a successful one. And he’s got one thing on his mind right now:
“If you are serious about being a dry cleaner, you need to be at The Clean Show in Orlando, August 23-26. No exceptions. Let me tell you why.”
Clean At Last!
At last, the Clean Show looms at the end of this week. Have you packed everything? Here’s a quick reminder of some key items you will want to have along to make your days at Clean as comfortable and productive as possible.
- Passport (won’t get far without that!)
- Details of your flights and hotel accomodations, etc.
- Business casual clothes
- Comfortable (NOT new) shoes
- Water bottle (refillable at fountains)
- Snacks to get you past the afternoon energy crash
- Clean Show App on your phone for show map, etc.
- Sim card or eSim that works in the U.S.
- All your various electronics and their chargers
- Notebook and pens for seminars, notes in booths, etc.
- List of specific booths you want to visit
- List of equipment or other items you need to check out
- Cell numbers of people you want to meet up with
Don’t wait to make a list of what you want to see until you walk in the door of the Show. You will be on complete sensory overload! Instead, visit the Clean Show site and scroll through the list of exhibitors. Check out our Booths to Visit page for interesting highlights. Do this while you are still at home, with few distractions. There is nothing worse than getting on the plane for the return trip home and slapping your forehead saying, “Oh, I was supposed to look at those new steaming units!”
It’s going to be a great show, and you’ll learn a lot. You’ll make connections. If someone hands you a business card, make notes on the back so you remember details of why it’s important.
Go. Enjoy the experience! Soak up the knowledge. Come home refreshed and ready to plunge back in with a new attitude.
We’ll see you there!
Daily Clean Show Diary
Publisher Becca Anderson knew it would be impossible to capture the whole show when she returned home, so she posted each day. Walk with her throught the Show of Shows 2025!
A WOW of a Show
Wow. This was a fantastic Show! Kudos to the organizers. The buses were on time. Registration was quick. The aisles were wide and even when they were filled with people, it wasn’t difficult to get around. They even had people to direct you to the right bus and the right room for your educational session. We were very glad that we were there.
Kevin’s got a list of some of the things that really made him stop in his tracks, so be sure to check out his full report.
