Jordan Berry [00:00:01]:
Welcome to Laundromat News Today. I am my mom’s favorite Laundromat news anchor, Jordan Berry, here with news all things Laundromat related from around the world. Let’s start off with a research study that just came out that shows that it is easy to get ladies not to eat Tide Pods. It’s much more difficult, 50% more difficult, in fact, to deter gents. Okay, get it. Ladies don’t eat Tide Pods, but deter gents like deter, gentlemen, deter. Okay, all right, never mind. That was today’s fake news story for today, but let’s jump into something real.

Jordan Berry [00:00:44]:
If you’ve been around listening to the podcast or news stories and stuff, we’ve probably seen AI all over the place and I’ve been kind of harping on technology coming up. And in fact, there’s another podcast coming up here pretty quick talking about some technology stuff. But I wanted to share a story that I saw that Matthew Simmons of Curbside Laundry shared on the Laundromat Owner Showcase Facebook group with Dyna Robotics training a robotic folder on how to fold clothes. And it is progressively learning how to fold clothes and how to do it well. So pretty cool. We’ve been saying for a long time around here that if somebody can figure out that folding problem that we have with laundry, it’s man off to the races here. So that is being actively worked on. Pretty cool to see how that is working.

Jordan Berry [00:01:39]:
And again, this the, the link to this video that Matthew shared and all the other stories will be in our newsletter. So make sure you’re signed up there. And I’m curious, Neil Milch of Electrolux commented on I’m curious what you guys think. And Neil, if you don’t know Neil, Neil is awesome. He’s a, he’s a character who’s been in the industry for a long time. Tons of energy. He commented a solution. Looking for a problem.

Jordan Berry [00:02:06]:
Question mark. I don’t know. What do you think? Do you think we need robotic laundry folders? Do you think it’s a solution? Looking for a problem? I don’t know. Curious what you guys think. Let me know jordan@laundromatinus Lottermiteresource.com okay, next story has to do with GE, which doesn’t really apply specifically to commercial laundry equipment. However, GE Appliances is investing almost half a billion dollars to relocate their washing machine production to Kentucky by 2027. So pretty interesting to see that. I know there’s a lot of initiatives and push and the tariff talk and all that stuff trying to get manufacturing back to the United States over here is doing that.

Jordan Berry [00:02:47]:
And I know some of our commercial manufacturers that are, you know, beloved in our industry are here in the US as well. So just kind of keeping an eye on general manufacturing and industry trends going on there. And let’s move on to Pine Barrens, New Jersey where there’s a dispute going on between Mr. Ellie of Ellie Premium Laundry and the mayor of the town. There was a, a council meeting where things I think got a little bit heated. Explosive is the word that they used there. And it’s an interesting article. The, the, the shopping, long story short is the shopping center is being redeveloped and they’re trying to force Mr.

Jordan Berry [00:03:29]:
Ellie out, it sounds like, and he and the mayor having a spat on what exactly that’s going to look like. But there’s a couple things in this article that I thought I’d just highlight one of them, maybe one of the biggest ones that Mr. Ellie is on a month to month oral lease. So there’s no written lease. And so he’s month to month, which puts him in a difficult situation. Right. So I just wanted to reiterate just how important leases are and specifically long term leases for Laundromat. So might be a good opportunity for some of you guys to just pull out your old lease documents, take a read through it, make sure you know all of the, all, all the things that are in that lease that pertain to you.

Jordan Berry [00:04:15]:
I’ve, I spent an hour today reading through a client’s 20 page lease that the landlord is giving them and, and making sure that things are in line. So it might be a good opportunity to just take a peek at what happens in different scenarios and what your obligations are according to the lease and what the landlord’s obligations are. It’s just kind of an interesting article to see how this is all playing out by not having a written lease. And there was, you know, some commitments made by the city I believe to help relocate, but because the Laundromat has so much infrastructure, they sort of took that back. So there’s some disputes happening there. But again we’ll include that article. You can go check that out and look for applications that pertain to. You wanted to highlight an article written by a gentleman named Reese Northwood telling you why.

Jordan Berry [00:05:11]:
The hidden gems of recession gems. Not gyms like getting ripped, but gems like jewels. The hidden gems of recession proof high margin urban investing are laundromats. And a couple things I just wanted to highlight here. Number one, they have the, some, some stats, some data that quote unquote underscores their resilience. One is a CAGR of 2.3. Basically the industry is growing by 2.3% per year from 2020 to 2025. I just want to highlight that while that probably is true and maybe true, that’s actually not all that impressive.

Jordan Berry [00:05:52]:
Obviously we’d rather growth than not, but you know, it’s a good sign. Point two they have is $6.2 billion worth of revenue by 2025. But I thought actually Waleed Cope of laundry CEO, he put out a newsletter a week or two ago talking about how that number is actually pretty small compared to other industries. Again, nothing to, nothing to sneeze over but you know, it’s. It’s not. There are industries that might surprise you that do a lot more revenue than laundromats. And then the third data point that underscores their resilience is this 95, 95% five year survival rate. And again I have sort of questioned this number and this number is basically comes out of that’s how many laundromats don’t default on their loans in the first five years.

Jordan Berry [00:06:47]:
However, there’s a whole lot of stuff that’s happening behind the scenes where people. It makes that number a little bit deceptive. So I just wanted to highlight that. But anyways article is kind of interesting. It talks about a lot of the pluses of Watermats and what’s going on with them. So if you’re somebody who’s interested in buying a laundromat, it’s worth going in and, and taking a look at this article. However, just you know, I just wanted you to have a healthy dose of like here’s what it’s really like. It’s not all Sunshine and roses and 95 success rate and all that does have a high success rate.

Jordan Berry [00:07:21]:
I don’t want to downplay that too much but 95 is probably a little deceptive. Okay, I want to highlight another, another good deed happening here. Rapid fire, Wash, Dry, Fold Laundromat is holding a a farm at their place. I’ve actually been speaking with a lot of brand new consulting clients lately who have this like drive to do something cool in their communities, to do good things in their communities through owning laundromats. In fact I just talked with somebody today who the main reason that he wants to buy laundromat, he owns other businesses. The main reason he wants to buy a laundromat is to connect with the community and use it as a business. He’s not trying to run a nonprofit, but use it to actually do good in the community. So another cool idea for some of you guys out there, maybe holding the farmers market, helping out some local farmers and doing something cool for the community, bringing fresh fruits and vegetables and other things to the community.

Jordan Berry [00:08:19]:
So that’s out there in Lawton, Oklahoma. Farmer’s Market. One one other thing I wanted to highlight. There’s a a pretty cool laundromat in Japan. We’re going international here and they are seeking to create an experience for their patrons. And the way they do that is they created a quote unquote American Laundromat. So it’s pretty cool to go through. There’s a whole bunch of pictures in here of what their interpretation of what an American Laundromat experience is.

Jordan Berry [00:08:55]:
So I just thought that was kind of interesting to go through and see. Some of it I think is spot on. Some of it’s kind of funny. So if you want to go check that again, make sure you’re on our newsletter there and you’ll be able to see the link to this article and see some of the cool stuff, including shave ice and Dairy Queen and a lot of it’s like 50s diner feel. It’s just, it’s pretty funny, pretty good stuff there. And finally, listen, there are some very cool things happening here around Laundromat Resource and I want to utilize the news to showcase news from around the industry, but that includes what we got going on here. So we’ve got some very cool new tools and resources coming out here pretty soon. So I just want to put that on your radar.

Jordan Berry [00:09:42]:
Keep an eye out whether you are looking to buy your first Laundromat or if you’re running a Laundromat or multiple Laundromats. We’ve got some cool stuff coming out that we’ve been working pretty hard on over here to help you succeed in your business. Get excited about that. And that is it for the roundup of Laundromat news today. Jordan Berry here. We’ll see you next week.