The French company Bulle de Linge builds an industrial laundry facility in Hannut

The French company Bulle de Linge, specialized in the care of personal laundry for nursing home residents, has chosen Hannut to build its first industrial laundry facility in Belgium. The Wallonia Export & Investment Agency supported the company in selecting the geographic location for its production site.

Although the French company had already been offering its services in Belgium for some time, Bulle de Linge will soon operate a new complex with an industrial laundry facility in Hannut. The company will construct a building for which the permit process is being finalized, enabling the creation of 70 jobs.

But what is Bulle de Linge? “It’s a company I founded in 2007 based on a fairly simple idea. In the textile care and laundry sector, the concept was to create a business specialized in handling the personal laundry of nursing home residents — exclusively their personal items, meaning clothing and underwear. We collect the laundry from nursing homes, process it at our production sites, and then return it,” explains Thomas Labrunye, CEO of Bulle de Linge.

Initially, the company developed its activities in France. “It started from the observation that there was no outsourced service offering for this need. Retirement homes therefore had to provide the service internally by necessity,” adds Thomas Labrunye, who represents the sixth generation of a family of launderers.

Bulle de Linge quickly became successful in France and now operates 12 production sites covering the entire territory. The company then expanded into Spain, Switzerland, and… Belgium. “We have a plant in northern France, five kilometers from the Belgian border. We therefore decided to offer our services in Belgium while production was handled in France. We hired a sales representative to prospect the market. All this was in 2019, just before the Covid period, which slowed us down somewhat. After Covid, we continued developing our customer base in Belgium. Two years ago, we decided to set up a production site in Belgium,” our interviewee continues.

“After discussions with SPI in Liège and the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency, we opted for a site in Hannut. Today, we are ready to begin construction. We are waiting to receive the building permit. If all goes well, we hope to open the production site this autumn,” adds Thomas Labrunye.

We had many discussions with the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency about development opportunities and the geographic choice of the site

Why choose Hannut?

“First of all, for the workforce. We operate in laundry services where very little can be automated. No two garments are identical. We were therefore looking for an area with sufficient recruitment potential. In addition, we have logistical constraints. Our trucks visit clients twice a week, so we cannot be isolated in the countryside. It was important to be close to major road networks. In Hannut, we are right next to the Brussels–Liège motorway, two major cities where we have many clients,” he explains.

As part of his development process in Wallonia, Thomas Labrunye was in contact with representatives of the Wallonia Export & Investment Agency. “We had many discussions about development opportunities and the geographic choice of the site. We also discussed investment incentives, but we were not eligible. Still, the exchanges were very valuable,” concludes Thomas Labrunye.