Most small laundries start out with supermarket products - 4-5 liter bottles bought at retail. It's simple, familiar and requires no advance ordering. But as volume grows, this approach becomes the most expensive way to source your supplies. Here's why.
The real math for bottled products
A good-quality 5L detergent costs around 120-180 MDL at retail. The recommended dose is 80-120 ml per kg of laundry. If you process 200 kg of laundry per day:
- •Daily consumption: ~20L of detergent (at 100ml/kg)
- •Daily cost: ~480-720 MDL (4 bottles of 5L)
- •Monthly cost (26 working days): 12,500-18,700 MDL
- •Cost per kg of processed laundry: 2.4-3.6 MDL
The real math for drum concentrate
A professional concentrated detergent (e.g. Tintolav) is delivered in 20-25 kg drums. The active concentration is 3-5x higher than retail products, and the dose per kg of laundry drops significantly:
- •Daily consumption: ~4-5 kg of concentrate (at 20-25g/kg of laundry)
- •Daily cost: 80-150 MDL (from a 25kg drum costing 400-750 MDL)
- •Monthly cost: 2,080-3,900 MDL
- •Cost per kg of processed laundry: 0.4-0.75 MDL