Print Posted 30/08/2021

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT: Clayburn Figredo, Founder and Managing Director of Cleaning Edge Solutions

In this edition of the Food Safety Select Member Spotlight Series we ask Clayburn Figredo, Founder and Managing Director of Cleaning Edge Solutions, all about their award-winning commercial and industrial cleaning service. Known for innovation, quality, and integrity, Cleaning Edge Solutions has been challenging the status quo of the cleaning industry since 2010.

What is the story behind the establishment of Cleaning Edge Solutions?

I established Cleaning Edge Solutions (CES) in 2010, after being a franchisee of a well-known cleaning franchise. Despite the franchise being quite successful, I felt that I could create a company that offered a more superior service.

The purpose behind the new venture was to “leverage our resources to lift up those who can benefit from our expertise”, including our team, our clients, and the broader community. This has since become evident with a 98% staff retention rate, a 95% client retention rate, and more recently the launch of the Figredo Family Foundation, a registered charity with GDR Status. The charity funds philanthropic ventures across Australia and abroad, including organisations such as Compassion Australia, The Smith Family, We Care, and Empart.

Tell us about Cleaning Edge Solutions and the services you offer.

Cleaning Edge Solutions offers cleaning services to both low-risk commercial facilities and high-risk facilities, such as food processing facilities, boning rooms, abattoirs, and food manufacturing facilities. Our teams are encouraged to deliver a superior service through our proprietary “Beyond the Edge” program. We also encourage our operators to identify opportunities to deliver exceptional service. An approach that has been embedded in our business regardless of whether we are cleaning a gym, retail outlet, or an aged care facility.

Our services are underpinned by stringent systems, processes, and annual ISO Certification in Quality, Environmental Management, and Safety. The high cleaning standards we set are maintained through regular internal audits by our professionally trained auditors. We also support our clients with external audits and have moved our proprietary “Safety Edge” training platform online. This allows external auditors to access information by site, operator, and task. We offer complete transparency.

Our service delivery is also enhanced by our CESgo app for our commercial clients. The app replaces the use of the traditional communication book and enables real-time communication between clients and their site team (while enhancing operational communication). The monthly audits conducted by professional independent auditors are accessible on the app with an audit score and allows tasks to be requested and assigned, with photos provided to the client when completed.

Who are Cleaning Edge Solutions customers?

Cleaning Edge Solutions services a wide range of customers in the industrial and commercial space. In the industrial space, we service abattoirs, boning rooms, food processing facilities, and food manufacturing facilities. Our advanced knowledge of the unique needs of our clients in these industries has led to the development of specific cleaning protocols that meet the FSANZ and HACCP guidelines. Working in such high-risk facilities enables us to work with confidence in all food manufacturing industries.

Our commercial clients consist of aged care facilities, medical centers, offices, gyms, food retail, and many other commercial businesses. Due to the introduction of COVID-19, we now use new cleaning protocols and ARTG approved cleaning, disinfecting, and sanitising solutions. Utilising such products offer 24-hour protection on high-touch surfaces and 30-day protection on low-touch surfaces, enabling all our clients to stay open with peace of mind.

The onset of the Delta variant has resulted in rapidly growing exposure sites and our Rapid Response COVID Cleaning Operators have been working to ensure our clients are taken care of. We are on-site within hours to deep clean and complete fogging of the premises, whenever required. We also issue a signed and dated Certificate of Compliance that can be shared with the relevant authorities as proof of cleaning.

Are your services affordable to small businesses?

First and foremost (especially today) we consider cleaning to be an investment in the safety of business owners, their staff, and customers. The cost of closing due to lockdowns is a significant burden on business owners and we provide value for money services that allow our clients to operate safely. If they do experience an outbreak, we pull out all stops to ensure they are back in business as soon as possible. To date, not one of our clients has had to shut down due to a COVID-19 breach.

How are your services helping food businesses with food safety and compliance?

We consider it our responsibility to help our clients with food safety and compliance. Separate from the annual ISO certification process our cleaning protocols are FSANZ and HACCP compliant. Our sites undergo regular internal auditing for physical, chemical, or microbiological contamination that could affect the green light for a processing facility to be declared production-ready for the next run. Site supervisors are regularly tasked with conducting swab tests and APT tests across all manufacturing surfaces.

To ensure ongoing compliance, operators complete monthly task-based Toolbox Training Modules, in addition to their induction and task-specific training, when they go on-site. When new operators are brought onto a site, they complete their initial training with a “buddy” to minimise risk for our clients.

What are some of the advantages of Cleaning Edge Solutions over your competitors?

One of our proud achievements was when Cleaning Edge Solutions was named as ‘AFR Boss Most Innovative Companies 2020’. Innovation is our competitive advantage, and we are the only cleaning company in Australia to win this award, demonstrating our innovative mindset that adds value to the clients that we partner with.

We are leading the way with innovation by using water and chemical saving methods. We have allowed our industrial clients to benefit through cost savings and we are constantly on the lookout to drive newer technology that challenges the status quo of the cleaning industry.

Cleaning Edge Solutions is also highly invested in keeping up to date with industry practices and requirements to keep our clients updated and their facilities compliant. We have a dedicated National Quality Assurance and Compliance Manager who oversees every site to always ensure the highest level of quality and compliance. This allows clients to coordinate and communicate seamlessly with an individual who understands their requirements and is educated on providing the best solutions.

Here are a few other advantages of partnering with Cleaning Edge Solutions:

Annually certified ISO compliant systems and processes
Carefully vetted and highly trained operators
Internal auditing to ensure ongoing compliance
Risk mitigation including $20m Product, Pollution and Product Liability Insurance underwritten by Lloyds of London

What sort of support is available to your customers?

Our clients have access to 24/7 real-time support either by phone or via our CESgo app. Cleaning services should not need to be on their radar, because it’s on ours. We seek to find innovative solutions to provide more efficient, cost-effective, and safe cleaning services. We go “Beyond the Edge” for all our clients.