Diwash are pretty unabashed about getting their hands dirty, taking care as they do of dishware cleaning for restaurants in  Hong Kong that need it – the first centralised service of its kind.

Ricky Au and Alex Liu launched Diwash in 2012, partly in response to their own experience and partly in the hopes of further expanding the food and beverage industry in the city.

Au remembers how one Christmas Day he washed a backlog of ten days’ worth of dishes at his restaurant because no one else was available. And it infuriated him.

Au and Liu had previously been colleagues in a business venture more than a decade ago and met again, in 2011, after taking a certification programme. It was during this time that the idea of Diwash came to mind.

A year later they set up a factory in Chai Wan, initially to alleviate the burden of having to wash their own restaurants’ dishware. Soon word spread of their specialised service, especially from restaurant owners looking to find a solution to the problem of finding staff willing to wash dishes.

When Diwash first provided the service it was a new concept in the city but had already been in use for some time in places like mainland China.

Trust was initially one of the biggest challenges. According to Au, some restaurant owners were unaccustomed to the new concept. Initial concerns centred on its feasibility, getting cutlery and dishware back intact, and tardiness.

To ease these concerns, Liu says Diwash provides a small percentage of “insurance” towards incidentals incurred by the customer or by Diwash. For now, their customer base is mostly restaurants.

Aside from providing this centralised dishware cleaning service, the biggest challenge has been logistics.

“We need to think about how we can deliver the dishware to the restaurant during the off time,” says Liu.

The “off-time” period is considered to be the most desirable for pick-up and delivery time. But because all restaurants request the same period, one late delivery can have a rippling effect on the rest of the stops. And, with Hong Kong traffic being as volatile as it is, Au and Liu know they cannot always have complete control over things.

“We always have a plan B,” says Liu. “We have two delivery trucks. We have one on standby in case there are any problems with the first truck. We have contingency plans.”

This contingency plan stems from mishaps that occurred during the first few years. For example, in the first year the Diwash truck was involved in a traffic accident, with dishes falling out on the road.

Knowing that their customers were still waiting for their clean dishes, they had to call for taxis to pick them up. Thankfully, only a small percentage was unusable since most were sealed and protected inside assigned, colour-coded plastic bins.

Today, Diwash has three factories – at Siu Sai Wan, Kwai Chung, and Yau Tong – where it handles the dishes of between 150-200 restaurants every day.

Liu and Au both entered the F&B industry early in life with Liu working at a fast-food restaurant and Au worked while a student in Vancouver.

Their combined knowledge of the industry and their experiences owning their own restaurants for over a decade have allowed them to recognise and adjust to market changes.

Be it broken machines, high staff turnover, and dealing with industry imitators, they are most concerned with maintaining the values of Diwash.

“It doesn’t matter if there are copycats or other challenges in the market. To deliver on time is always our goal. No matter what they [copycats] do, this is what we have to do. We need to maintain certain standards so we make sure our prices are standard. We don’t just lower the price like other people do. Eventually our customers will understand why we provide this level of service,” says Au.

Diwash also provides its services to some schools and hospitals. According to Au, when Diwash approaches new restaurant owners about their service, they automatically input the dishware service into their business plan.

Liu hopes that Diwash will diversify into the airline industry and other sectors of the F&B industry in the future.

“I know it’s not easy but we have an army to do it,” he says. “If they’re looking for profits, there are so many industries where they can go to. In this industry, we are not only into profits. We are following our dreams by helping the food and beverage industry,” Liu says. 

This article appeared in the Classified Post print edition as Cleaning up.