The History of Alsco
New Zealand Towel Service and Alsco trace their roots back to 1910 in New Zealand and 1889 in Lincoln, Nebraska America. Until then, merchants, restauranteurs, tavern operators and factory owners had to pay a pretty penny to supply their workers and facilities with linens and uniforms — and to keep them clean. Of course, in 1889, the idea of “outsourcing”, let alone the term, was still decades away. Nonetheless, the idea of commercial textile services and laundry began to catch on and this is a brief outline of our history...
- 1910
New Zealand Towel Service (NZTS) was founded in 1910 by George & Elizabeth Plowman.
From this building in Auckland New Zealand’s biggest laundry started.
We began as a laundry, processing customer-owned textiles and renting out a small range of towels.- 1920
In the 1920’s & 1930’s, NZ Towel Supply was mainly processing towels, customer-owned textiles (COG) and bags for the shipping industry. Check out the modern fleet vehicles of the day.- 1940
By the 1940’s, NZ Towel Supply and Laundry had expanded into the uniform rental business.
...with an updated “Modern” fleet of vehicles NZTS kept getting bigger and better!- 1950
During the 1950’s NZTS introduced the Steiner Single-serve Cloth Towel to New Zealand.- 1960
In the 1960’s we introduced Dust Control Mats. This has evolved to today’s message and logo mats.- 1970
In the 1970’s we introduced POLYCOTTON Fabrics for Industrial Garments.
During the 1970’s NZTS was involved in the pioneering of Air Towel’s in New Zealand which we still supply and service nationwide today.- 1980
In the 1980’s we introduced a range of Washroom Products.- 1986
1986 saw NZTS get started in nationwide Paper Product distribution for our customers.- 1990
During the 1990’s we introduced Clean Room Processing and Barcode Tracking Systems.- 1998
In 1998 NZTS changed ownership from the Plowman family to another family the Steiners, and we became Alsco NZ.- 1889
Alsco was founded in 1889 in America by George A. Steiner.- Today, there are linen and uniform processing, cleanroom, manufacturing, and sales/distribution facilities in most every corner of the world, including New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Europe, South America, United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.
- 1999
1999 saw the emergence of our Fresh & Clean Brand and Branches specialising in Washroom Services and Consumable Products being launched to the marketplace.