Persil Service was the trading name of Persil Services Ltd., which operated concession units within selected

Sainsbury's J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company ...

stores in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

. The company operated over 70 shops and employed staff who were trained to process

photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...

s, prepare

dry cleaning Dry cleaning is any cleaning process for clothing and textiles using a solvent other than water. Dry cleaning still involves liquid, but clothes are instead soaked in a water-free liquid solvent. Tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene), known i ...

and

laundry Laundry refers to the washing of clothing and other textiles, and, more broadly, their drying and ironing as well. Laundry has been part of history since humans began to wear clothes, so the methods by which different cultures have dealt with ...

, cut house keys and to serve customers. Persil Service was taken over by Timpson Ltd in May 2008 and all stores are now listed as "Timpson Ltd" branches, with gradual refits across the line bringing storefronts into the Timpson style.

History

Persil Service began as a subsidiary of Unilever Ventures, part of

Unilever Unilever plc is a British multinational consumer goods company with headquarters in London, England. Unilever products include food, condiments, bottled water, baby food, soft drink, ice cream, instant coffee, cleaning agents, energy dri ...

, who hold a licence to use the Persil brand. It was initially trialed within eight Sainsbury's stores in

Central London Central London is the innermost part of London, in England, spanning several boroughs. Over time, a number of definitions have been used to define the scope of Central London for statistics, urban planning and local government. Its characteris ...

in 2002 and after a successful 12-month pilot scheme was implemented within another 34 stores in 2004. Unilever secured a "multi-million pound" deal with Uberior Equity Ltd. to finance the implementation of the new stores. The venture was initially run in partnership with Persil (which provided the brand name), Sainsbury's (which provided the floorspace) and

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

(which provided photo processing equipment). After the pilot scheme, the Kodak partnership was dropped and

Fujifilm , trading as Fujifilm, or simply Fuji, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, operating in the realms of photography, optics, office and medical electronics, biotechnology, and chemicals. The offerings from the ...

filled the gap.

Services

Dry cleaning and laundry

Persil Service contracted large, industrial dry cleaning and laundry factories up and down the country to do the dry cleaning for a certain amount of shops within a certain radius. However, some stores (the so-called "production stores") processed dry cleaning and laundry on-site, allowing nearby shops to keep their customers' clothes within the company. Many of these production stores formerly traded as Sketchleys.

Photo processing

After Persil Service and Fujifilm teamed up, stores were outfitted with Fujifilm lab equipment. All stores contain a Fujifilm FP 363SC for fast processing of one-hour 35mm films rolls and a Fujifilm Digital Minilab Frontier 340, which allowed up to 900 customer photos to be processed per hour. The minilab was connected to a Fujifilm Smartpix digital terminal, located in the shop area which allows customers to print their own digital photos but at the same quality as other photos printed on a chemical printer.

Other services

Persil Service operated a key cutting service in most shops. The majority of these were for house keys only, but a small selection of shops had the equipment to craft copies of car keys.
The company piloted a shoe repair service in some branches in the north of England in the first half of 2006. The pilot scheme ended and the service was not adopted by the company. However, shoe repairs were taken in by shops and sent away for repairs by a partnered company.
A carpet cleaner hire service was available in most stores, in conjunction with Clantex Ltd. (previously Escort Elite).
An unsuccessful home delivery service was also piloted.How did it all start?
persilservice.com, last accessed 2006-09-19

References

External links

Persil Service homepage

Clantex Ltd homepage
(carpet cleaning)
SGC London
graphic design of Persil Service logos {{Unilever Retail companies of the United Kingdom Retail companies established in 2002 Retail companies disestablished in 2008 Unilever brands