Plant versus drop store

Definition

A plant cleans on site; a drop store takes garments in and sends them to a plant.

Why It Matters

The two halves of a dry-cleaning operation carry different risks: the plant holds the equipment, the environmental history, and the compliance burden, while drop stores are retail leases feeding it volume. A network's value depends on which you are buying, one plant serving several stores is an efficient hub, but the plant's soil and machines are where diligence money goes, and a drop store buying cleaning from someone else's plant is a margin question, not an environmental one.