Prudential Overall Supply Company – A Family Business

The idea of a family-run business seems almost obsolete in a world filled with mega corporations, but Prudential Overall Supply Company started as a family business and has prided themselves on maintaining the care and customer relationships that only family-owned businesses can foster.

The Prudential Overall Supply Company is a work uniform supply company that got its start in 1932, when John Clark traded in his Ford Truck to start the uniform supply company – originally called Prudential Laundry. Like all great business ideas, John Clark saw a gap in the market, and decided to capitalize on an opportunity. Prudential was one of the first companies to offer uniform rental services, which later became standard practice for any uniform supply company.

Prudential Laundry was started in Los Angeles, California. The business model was based on supplying clean work apparel and uniform rentals to local businesses. The company had to purchase the uniforms, in order to rent them out to local businesses. This was obviously not the most lucrative business, at first, and it took them some time before they were able to start making a profit. Soon, business was booming and the rest of John’s family – his other siblings – came out West to help John run the supply company.

Providing great customer service helped them grow their business into a lucrative company. To this day, Prudential offers uniform rentals which can be fantastic for any start-up business, because they do not need to pay for the cost of uniforms out of pocket.