Hohenstein celebrates 80 years of professional textile services success for being a body of quality certification mark.
Prof Dr Josef Kurz, Deputy Director of Hohenstein, the scientific partner of the certification association said, “The constant focus on advancement without forgetting traditional roots is characteristic of the German Certification Association for Professional Textile Services.”
The certification process started in 1935 and was officially set up in 1938. In 1953 the quality mark for professional textile services was officially recognized by the RAL committee for terms of delivery and quality assurance in the German standardization committee.
Followed by the certification, standards were set for quality and hygiene in the industry.
Based on American model the rental line in commercial sectors, opened up for RAL certified laundries in the mid-1960s.
Mid 1970s, hospitals closed their own laundries and gave linen laundry to commercial laundries for washing and disinfecting because of which more strict hygiene standards were introduced to produce hygienically sound linen to protect laundry personnel against possible infections from soiled linen.
Since 1999 due to HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) concept in the food industry specific hygiene requirements for food processing business employees’ clothes were introduced.
Also, since 2011due to another demographic change of people spending their retirement years in care homes, they also required their linens to be processed in line with hygienic standards.
Quality Certification Marks 992 besides Germany has also been established in Switzerland, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Luxemburg, Finland, Russia, Poland, Slovenia, Turkey, Czech Republic, Japan and Dubai. Hohenstein carries out external checks in these countries following exactly the same criteria as in Germany.
