Nigeria’s position in the global professional textile care industry has received international recognition following the emergence of CleanAce Nigeria as Africa’s best and the world’s second-ranked company in the Retail Textile Cleaning BIG category at the 2026 CINET Global Best Practices Awards held in Milan, Italy.
The recognition has renewed calls for government intervention to formalise Nigeria’s largely unregulated fabricare industry through vocational training, national occupational standards, improved access to equipment and policies capable of attracting investment into the sector.
CleanAce Co-Founder and Group Chief Executive Officer, Eniibukun Adebayo, disclosed this at a media briefing in Lagos, explaining that the company scored 83.63 out of 100 to emerge second globally, ahead of competitors from India, Malaysia, the Netherlands, France, Canada and the United States.
More than 80 companies from 23 countries were nominated and assessed by an independent international jury during the October 22 and 23 event.
Nigeria also emerged as the only African country among the 17 nations that received the Country Best Practices Award 2026. CleanAce received additional recognition for entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility.
Adebayo said the achievement demonstrated the capacity of Nigerian businesses to meet international standards despite the challenging operating environment, particularly unreliable electricity, high energy costs and inadequate infrastructure.
“This is a win for Nigeria and Africa at large. Of the 17 countries that received a Country Award, Nigeria was the only one from Africa. We did it without reliable grid power, running on expensive diesel, treating our own water and training our own technicians. If excellence can be built in Lagos, it can be built anywhere in Africa,” he said.
However, he argued that the international recognition should draw attention to the wider challenges confronting professional textile care businesses, particularly the absence of deliberate government policies to develop the industry.
Adebayo, who is also President of the Fabricare Professionals and Drycleaners Association (FPDA), lamented that dry cleaning and professional laundry services were yet to receive adequate recognition within Nigeria’s technical and vocational education framework.
He said the industry required skilled technicians, specialised equipment and substantial capital investment, but remained largely excluded from discussions around vocational skills development and entrepreneurship support.
“The industry can happen with the right conversations, the right collaborations, the right support that will first even inspire, as you said, the young people. Let them even see that it is a viable industry,” he said.
Adebayo, however, questioned the limited attention given to the sector in government skills development programmes, just as the cost of acquiring commercial laundry equipment was significantly higher than that of setting up some conventional vocational businesses.
“They are teaching people how to organise, they are teaching people, even market women, how to grind pepper. How much does it cost to start to set up a tailoring business compared to how much it costs to set up a dry cleaning business? And still the government cannot identify that this is a big industry. The smallest commercial washing machine goes for N2.5 million, N2.6 million,” he said.
He called for greater government recognition of the sector, arguing that its development could create employment opportunities, encourage technical skills acquisition and support other sectors, including hospitality, healthcare and fashion.
“We need you in the media. That’s why we have invited you, and that’s why we have brought stakeholders. Let us all join voices together. Let’s put that word out and let the right people hear about it so that the changes that we need, we can start seeing them,” Adebayo added.
To address the industry’s structural challenges, he said the FPDA was working to organise operators across states, promote professional training and establish standards that would improve service delivery.
He listed the association’s initiatives to include free monthly Fabricare Masterclasses and the development of national occupational standards with members for accreditation by the National Board for Technical Education (NBTE).
The association has also surveyed 235 operators, which now forms part of the CINET Africa Report, to provide information on the state of the sector.
Adebayo called for collaboration between the NBTE, the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and industry stakeholders to develop practical training curricula and establish professional standards for operators.
He also stressed the need to incorporate laundry, dry cleaning and textile care into vocational education programmes to provide young Nigerians with alternative career opportunities.
The FPDA president, while speaking on the industry’s economic prospects, said professional textile care could support the hospitality and healthcare sectors through specialised services, particularly medical laundry, hygiene management and infection control.
He further disclosed plans to promote shared processing infrastructure through a proposed hub-and-spoke facility with a capacity to handle 25,000 pieces daily and serve 50 collection-centre operators.
According to him, the arrangement would enable smaller businesses to access professional cleaning facilities without bearing the high cost of establishing full-scale processing plants.
Adebayo also called for stronger engagement with fashion houses and garment manufacturers to encourage the use of appropriate care labels, which would provide cleaning professionals with the necessary instructions for handling different fabrics and extending the lifespan of garments.
Meanwhile, the international recognition has also brought attention to the role of professional training in improving the industry’s capacity. The company’s Fabricare Institute, established in 2017 and accredited by the Lagos State Technical and Vocational Education Board (LASTVEB), has trained and impacted more than 50,000 entrepreneurs, technicians and operators.
He added that training programmes for persons with hearing impairment had continued for almost a decade, with 30 additional participants trained in 2026 through support from the MTN Foundation.
Additionally, the FPDA is also seeking collaboration and sponsorship to expand vocational opportunities for persons with disabilities, while also seeking to attract younger Nigerians to the sector as the association was considering initiatives that would expose students to professional textile care and help change perceptions about technical occupations.
He said the company’s Clean Lifestyle initiative already provides educational visits for schoolchildren to observe professional laundry operations and understand the importance of cleanliness and hygiene. The association is also proposing that Nigeria host its own CINET Best Practices Awards in 2027 to encourage local operators to adopt internationally recognised standards.
Its second CleanShow Africa exhibition is scheduled to hold from May 25 to 27, 2027, at the Landmark Event Centre, Lagos, with equipment manufacturers and other industry stakeholders expected to participate.
Adebayo maintained that Nigeria’s international recognition should serve as an opportunity to address the policy and structural gaps limiting the growth of the fabricare industry.
He said developing the sector would require sustained collaboration among government agencies, technical institutions, regulators and private operators to establish standards, improve professional training and create an enabling environment for investment.