Carlo Toye, the man who brought you Laundry Like Home, has expanded his business with a recently-opened second venture, Siem Reap Linen Care.

The company will cater more for small hotels and businesses, and features top of the range industrial machines from Thailand.

Together with fellow Belgian Erwin Suykens, Toye opened Siem Reap Linen Care following requests from clients. At Laundry Like Home, Toye explains, he catered mainly for individuals and didn’t really have the capacity to service hotels.

“For one hotel we only did the pillow-cases, for another we would just do the napkins, that kind of thing,” he says. “Some hotels started to ask if we could do more. I didn’t have the machines to do it so then I started to look for bigger ones.”

Siem Reap Linen Care counts boutique hotels such as Navutu Dreams Resort among its customers.

“We cannot provide for a hotel that has 200 or 250 rooms – for that we are too small,” says Toye. “But there is a big market here for boutique hotels that are between twenty and forty rooms.”

Toye places great emphasis on care and professionalism. His staff is meticulous about counting and re-counting laundry items to ensure no loss or mix-up with another hotel.

“We try to pay a lot of attention to that because we know there is a big problem in Siem Reap, because everybody buys from the same supplier,” he says.

Siem Reap Linen Care uses the latest machinery imported from Thailand, the American brand Image. The machines boast high speed washer-extractors with a g-force nearly four times bigger than that of conventional machines, enabling them to extract more dirt from the washing.

There is also a large ironing machine that can fit a king-size bed-sheet. It contains a three-metre wide cylinder and can process five sheets per minute. Additionally it has a special chrome-plated cylinder to improve the finishing quality of the linen.

Toye wants to provide a twenty-four hour service which is why he prefers to provide a professional, reliable service to smaller venues.

And in order to get linens looking dazzling white, Toye uses a secret ingredient.

“We have special chemicals because we know that in a lot of places in Siem Reap there’s too much iron in the water,” he says “So we had a company come here from Phnom Penh to measure the water for us and we have chemicals to make the laundry bright white. We are a little bit more expensive than the other laundries, but at least the laundry will come out white.”