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Mulberry’s Dry Cleaning – twincitieslive.com
A little effort goes a long way. Instead of throwing out all of their old hangers when this Twin Cities dry cleaner decided to change out the hangers they use, Mulberry’s found an organization that could put them to good use.
Best of the Twin Cities 2009
Minnesota Monthly / October 2009 / Best of the Twin Cities 2009
Do What You Do Best—Hire Out The Rest
Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, February 2009
A Cleaner Cleaner, Can a dirty business go green
Minnesota Monthly Magazine, December 2008
By Sarah Glassman
Here’s a news flash: A lot of people aren’t in love with their dry cleaner. In fact, according to the Better Business Bureau, dry-cleaning services are among the most frequent targets of consumer complaints in the Twin Cities.
Dan Miller understands the dissatisfaction. About a year ago, he brought a comforter to his local dry cleaner. “The guy was smoking a cigarette outside,” says Miller. “Inside, it smelled like chemicals and there were plastic bags everywhere. I asked how long it would take. He said two weeks.”
That’s when Miller had something of an epiphany: “This industry is like the Wild West.”
But Miller, a business consultant by training (he was working for McKinsey & Company when he had his revelation), also recognized an opportunity. Couldn’t someone build a better dry cleaner? He began traveling the country, methodically studying the business, even attending the Drycleaning and Laundry Institute in Maryland.
This month, he unveils the culmination of his research: Mulberrys Garment Care, which will include home delivery service and a retail location in St. Louis Park.
The goal isn’t just to create a different sort of dry cleaner, with a pleasant in-store atmosphere (think Starbucks), convenient hours, and rigorous quality control. It’s also to create a cleaner one: Unlike traditional dry cleaners, which employ the highly toxic solvent perchloroethylene (commonly known as perc)—or even like many putatively green cleaners, which use a slightly less-toxic chemical, siloxane—Mulberrys will process clothes with pressurized carbon dioxide, a method approved by the EPA and Greenpeace. As a solvent, carbon dioxide rubs out stains and doesn’t shrink fibers. More important, if spilled, it dissipates into the air.
Says Miller: “We’ll be the only cleaner to clean clothes with something that doesn’t have to be taken away in a hazardous-waste truck.
Mulberrys Garment Care Earns International Dry Cleaning Award
Mulberrys’ Quality and Service Recognized by 2008 Award of Excellence
Good clothes need good care. When your time and money have been invested in quality garments, finding the right cleaner you can trust to restore those garments to their peak condition can be difficult. There are concerns about broken buttons, imperfect pressing and spots that won’t go away. It’s tough to find the right cleaner to do the job. But the task has become easier because of a national program called the Award of Excellence, a certification process developed by the Clothing Care Council.
Dan Miller is a local cleaner who met the rigorous demands of the program. The Minneapolis-based cleaner passed a rigorous set of cleaning evaluations to achieve the 2008 Award of Excellence for Quality Garment Cleaning & Customer Service, a prestigious international award given by the Clothing Care Council, a Washington, DC-based group.
“With so many cleaners out there, I know it’s tough for a consumer to know which cleaners are the good ones who care,” Miller owner of Mulberrys Garment Care, said. “We are very excited that we surpassed the Award of Excellence’s tough requirements. This award is verification by an independent international organization of our commitment to excellent quality and customer service.”
To date, approximately 140 companies around the world have attained the Award of Excellence, which requires passing separate stain removal and cleaning performance tests among other criteria. Mulberrys cleaners is the first dry cleaner in Minneapolis to accomplish this and the only dry cleaner in Minnesota to win the award in 2008.
Qualifying for the Award of Excellence is just the first step. In order to remain in the program, Mulberrys Garment Care must adhere to rules designed to ensure that customers get the service and quality they deserve on every trip. Offering a money-back service guarantee is one example of this. As a further safeguard, the company’s cleaning performance and stain removal abilities will be reevaluated annually.
“Finding a good cleaner who will consistently treat you like a valued customer shouldn't’t be a guessing game,” Clothing Care Council spokesperson Bill Fischer said. The 40-year veteran of the cleaning industry noted that “by becoming an Award of Excellence cleaner, Mulberrys is proof that quality cleaners do exist—an now customers know where to look.”
Visit www.ifi.org/consumer/aoe.php for more on the AOE program