UniFirst Stock

UniFirst Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides workplace uniforms and protective work wear clothing in the United States.

The company designs, manufactures, personalizes, rents, cleans, delivers, and sells a wide range of uniforms and protective clothing, including shirts, pants, jackets, coveralls, lab coats, smocks, aprons and specialized protective wear, such as flame resistant and high visibility garments. The company also rents and sells industrial wiping products, floor mats, facility service products and other non-garment items, and provide restroom and cleaning supplies and first aid cabinet services and other safety supplies, as well as certain safety training to a variety of manufacturers, retailers and service companies.

The company's principal services include providing customers with uniforms and other non-garment items, picking up soiled uniforms or other items on a periodic basis (usually weekly), and delivering, at the same time, cleaned and processed items. The company offers uniforms in a wide variety of styles, colors, sizes and fabrics, often with personalized emblems selected by the customer.

During the fiscal year ended August 26, 2023, the company manufactured approximately 60% of the garments it placed in service. These were primarily work pants and shirts manufactured at three of the company's plants located in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, one plant located in Managua, Nicaragua, as well as at subcontract manufacturers that it utilizes within its sourcing strategy to balance demand and optimize costs. Because it designs and manufactures a majority of its own uniforms and protective clothes, the company can produce custom garment programs for its larger customers, offer a diverse range of such designs within its standard line of garments and better control the quality, price and speed at which it services such garments.

Products and Services

The company provides its customers with personalized workplace uniforms and protective work clothing in a broad range of styles, colors, sizes and fabrics. The company's uniform products include shirts, pants, jackets, coveralls, lab coats, smocks, aprons and specialized protective wear, such as flame resistant and high visibility garments. At certain specialized facilities, the company also decontaminates and cleans clothes and other items which may have been exposed to radioactive materials and service special cleanroom protective wear and facilities. The company also offers non-garment items and services, such as industrial wiping products, floor mats, dry and wet mops, restroom and cleaning supplies and other textile products. The company also sells first aid cabinet services and other safety supplies, provide certain safety training and maintain wholesale distribution and pill packaging operations.

The company offers its customers a range of garment service options, including full-service rental programs in which garments are cleaned and serviced by it, lease programs in which garments are cleaned and maintained by individual employees and purchase programs to buy garments and related items directly. As part of its rental business, the company picks up a customer's soiled uniforms and/or other items on a periodic basis (usually weekly) and deliver back cleaned and processed replacement items. The company primarily serves its customers pursuant to written service contracts that range in duration from three to five years.

Seasonality

Historically, the company's revenues and operating results have varied from quarter to quarter and are expected to continue to fluctuate in the future. These fluctuations have been due to a number of factors, including general economic conditions in the company's markets; the timing of acquisitions and of commencing start-up operations and related costs; the company's effectiveness in integrating acquired businesses and start-up operations; the timing of nuclear plant outages; volatility in raw material and labor costs; capital expenditures; seasonal rental and purchasing patterns of the company's customers; and price changes in response to competitive factors. In addition, the company's operating results historically have been lower during the second and fourth fiscal quarters than during the other quarters of the fiscal year (year ended August 2023).

Customers

The company serves businesses of all sizes in most industry categories. The company's typical customers include automobile service centers and dealers, delivery services, food and general merchandise retailers, manufacturers, maintenance facilities, restaurants and food-related businesses, healthcare providers, including vaccine manufacturers, business service providers, soft and durable goods wholesalers, transportation and warehousing companies, energy production and transmission operations, and many others who require employee clothing on the job for image, identification, protection and/or utility purposes. Among the largest customers of the company's conventional uniform rental business are divisions, units, regional operations or franchised agencies of major, nationally recognized organizations. With respect to the company's Specialty Garments segment, typical customers include government agencies, research and development laboratories, high technology companies, cleanroom operators, and utilities operating nuclear reactors. The company services over 300,000 customer locations in the U.S., Canada and Europe from more than 270 customer service, distribution and manufacturing facilities.

Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service

The company markets its products and services to a diverse customer base and to prospects that range across virtually all industry segments. Marketing contact is made through print advertising, direct mail, digital advertising, publicity, trade shows, catalogs, telemarketing, multiple web sites and direct field sales representation. The company has built and maintain an extensive, proprietary database of prescreened and qualified business prospects that have been sourced from its various promotional initiatives, including mailers, web site contacts, advertising responses, sales calls and lists purchased from third-party providers. These prospect records serve as a primary targeting resource for the company's professional sales organization and are constantly updated, expanded and maintained by an in-house team of specialist database qualifiers and managers. To aid in the effective marketing of products and services, the company supplies sales representatives with an extensive selection of sales aids, brochures, presentation materials and vertical market communications tools. The company also provides representatives with detailed on-line profiles of high opportunity markets to educate them on the typical issues, needs and concerns of those markets.

The company employs a large team of trained professional sales representatives to market its services to potential customers and develop new accounts. While most of the company's sales representatives present a full range of service solutions, it also has dedicated representatives for select products and services, as well as for specific markets. For example, in certain geographic markets the company employs teams of dedicated facility services sales representatives who focus exclusively on developing business for its floor care, restroom and related service programs. The company employs specialist executive-level salespeople in its National Accounts organization-with specialists in rental programs and in direct sale programs-to target the very largest national companies with broad uniform and/or facility services program needs.

The company's route sales representatives are the first line of continuing customer contact. They are supported by local customer service representatives, local service management staff, and local operations management leaders, all of whom are focused on addressing the ongoing needs of customers, constantly delivering high-value service and pursuing total customer satisfaction.

Government Regulations

The company's nuclear garment decontamination facilities in the U.S. are licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or in certain cases, by the applicable state agency, and are subject to regulation by federal, state and local authorities.

Competition

The company's principal competitors include Cintas Corporation, Alsco and Vestis Corporation.

History

UniFirst Corporation was founded in 1936.