UniFirst

Last updated
UniFirst Corporation
Company type Public
NYSE:  UNF
S&P 600 component
Industry Apparel industry, Workwear, Uniform service
FoundedJuly 12, 1936;87 years ago (1936-07-12)
FounderThe Croatti family
Headquarters,
Number of locations
260 facilities
Area served
United States, Canada, Europe
Key people
Steven S. Sintros (President & CEO)
Products
Services
RevenueIncrease2.svg US$ 2 billion (FY 2022) [1]
Decrease2.svg US$ 134.3 million (FY 2022) [1]
Decrease2.svg US$ 103.4 million (FY 2022) [1]
Total assets Increase2.svg US$ 2.4 billion (FY 2022) [1]
Total equity Increase2.svg US$ 1.91 billion (FY 2022) [1]
Number of employees
14,000
Subsidiaries UniTech, UniClean, UniFirst-First Aid Group
Website unifirst.com

UniFirst Corporation is a uniform rental company based in Wilmington, Massachusetts, United States, that manufactures, sells, and rents uniforms and protective clothing. UniFirst employs more than 14,000 people and has over 260 facilities in the United States, Canada, and Europe, including customer service centers, nuclear decontamination facilities, cleanroom locations, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants. [2] [3] [4] [5]

Contents

History

UniFirst was founded in 1936 by the Croatti family, [6] under the name of National Overall Dry Cleaning Company. [7] The company began in a horse barn that had been converted into a makeshift laundry, and its equipment consisted of a single washing machine and a delivery truck. It served Boston area factory workers and other laborers, whose heavy soiled work clothing needed to be cleaned frequently. [7] The National Overall Dry Cleaning Company was incorporated in Massachusetts on October 6, 1950. [8]

In the 1980s, UniFirst was sued by residents of Woburn, Massachusetts in a class-action lawsuit. The residents alleged that Unifirst, along with two other firms, had released pollution that had leaked into the water supply, and that this was a cause of increased instances of leukemia in the town. UniFirst settled with the residents without going to trial, for a sum of one million dollars. [9] This episode was featured in the non-fiction book A Civil Action by Jonathan Harr, later adapted into a film of the same name. [10] As of 2009, UniFirst's environmental record has improved; it has received awards for its water treatment processes from the Missouri Water Environment Association and the Water and Wastewater Utility Special Service Division of Austin, Texas, among others. [11]

In 1991 Ronald Croatti became the chief executive officer of the company. He continued his rise in 1995, when he became the company president, and again in 2002, when he became the chairman of the board. [12] In 2011, UniFirst featured in an episode of the reality television series Undercover Boss . [13]

In May 2017, Ronald Croatti died and Steven S. Sintros became President & CEO. [14]

Products and services

UniFirst supplies uniforms and protective clothing, as well as restroom and cleaning products such as floor mats, mops, air fresheners and soap. [6] [15] Products that it manufactures in-house include work shirts, work pants, outerwear, and flame-resistant work apparel. [15] It also manufactures a majority of the garments it places in rental programs. [15]

Subsidiaries

UniFirst subsidiary companies include Green Guard, UniTech Services Group, and UniClean. Green Guard is a corporate supplier of first aid equipment; [16] UniTech provides laundering and decontamination services to the nuclear industry; [17] and UniClean supplies clothing and services related to cleanrooms. [6] [18] UniFirst also has a Canadian uniform rental subsidiary called UniFirst Canada. [19]

See also

Related Research Articles

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A uniform is a variety of costume worn by members of an organization while participating in that organization's activity. Modern uniforms are most often worn by armed forces and paramilitary organizations such as police, emergency services, security guards, in some workplaces and schools and by inmates in prisons. In some countries, some other officials also wear uniforms in their duties; such is the case of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service or the French prefects. For some organizations, such as police, it may be illegal for non members to wear the uniform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waltham, Massachusetts</span> City in Massachusetts, United States

Waltham is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, and was an early center for the labor movement as well as a major contributor to the American Industrial Revolution. The original home of the Boston Manufacturing Company, the city was a prototype for 19th century industrial city planning, spawning what became known as the Waltham-Lowell system of labor and production. The city is now a center for research and higher education, home to Brandeis University and Bentley University as well as industrial powerhouse Raytheon Technologies. The population was 65,218 at the census in 2020.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Woburn, Massachusetts</span> City in Massachusetts, United States

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cleanroom</span> Dust-free room for research or production

A cleanroom or clean room is an engineered space, which maintains a very low concentration of airborne particulates. It is well isolated, well-controlled from contamination, and actively cleansed. Such rooms are commonly needed for scientific research, and in industrial production for all nanoscale processes, such as semiconductor manufacturing. A cleanroom is designed to keep everything from dust, to airborne organisms, or vaporised particles, away from it, and so from whatever material is being handled inside it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">URS Corporation</span> Former American diversified engineering firm

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anderson Regional Transportation Center</span> Transit station in Woburn, Massachusetts, US

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cintas</span> American business services company

Cintas Corporation is an American corporation headquartered in Mason, Ohio which provides a range of products and services to businesses including uniforms, mats, mops, cleaning and restroom supplies, first aid and safety products, fire extinguishers and testing, and safety courses. Cintas is a publicly held company traded on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol CTAS and is a component of the Standard & Poor's 500 Index.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">G&K Services</span>

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References

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  8. Moody's Investors Service (May 1984). Moody's industrial news reports. Moody's Investors Service. p. 3804. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  9. Marshall, E (1986). "Woburn case may spark explosion of lawsuits". Science. 234 (4775): 418–420. Bibcode:1986Sci...234..418M. doi:10.1126/science.3764418. ISSN   0036-8075. PMID   3764418.
  10. Elisa Bergslien (15 May 2012). An Introduction to Forensic Geoscience. John Wiley & Sons. pp. 437–438. ISBN   978-1-4051-6054-4 . Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  11. "UniFirst Wins Awards for 'Green' Laundering Processes". American Laundry News. January 12, 2009.
  12. "Executive Profile: Ronald D. Croatti". Bloomberg Businessweek.[ dead link ]
  13. Dishman, Lydia (January 7, 2011). "Undercover Boss: How UniFirst Keeps Margins Up on Uniforms Without Losing Its Shirt". CBS News. Retrieved April 7, 2012.
  14. "UniFirst names new CEO following death of Ronald Croatti in May".
  15. 1 2 3 "UniFirst Corp (UNF)". Reuters. Retrieved May 5, 2015.
  16. "Green Guard". Green Guard. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  17. "UniTech Services Group". UniTech Services Group. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  18. "UniClean Cleanroom Services". UniClean. Retrieved April 8, 2012.
  19. "UniFirst Canada". UniFirst Canada. Retrieved May 3, 2015.