Laundry and Ware Wash Products

The State of Colorado, Department of Personnel & Administration, State Purchasing Office, issued Invitation for Bid (IFB) IFB-CM-15-001 on September 4, 2014, to establish statewide price agreements for laundry and ware wash products and related services. Eligible ordering entities include state agencies, institutions of higher education, political subdivisions, and nonprofit organizations throughout Colorado. The procurement seeks bids for a comprehensive range of laundry products (including powder and liquid detergents, rust-removing sours, bleach, fabric softeners with bacteriostatic agents, laundry alkali, and pre-soak products) and ware wash products (including detergents and compounds in solid, powdered, and liquid forms), along with related services such as chemical dispensing system installation and maintenance, employee training, and emergency support. Bidders must respond across seven geographic regions (Denver Metro, South Central, North Central, West Central, Northwestern, Southwestern, and Southeastern) and provide pricing for a minimum of 80 percent of market basket items to be considered responsive. All products must comply with EPA, Designed for the Environment (DfE), EcoLogo, and/or Green Seal environmental guidelines and align with Colorado's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing Policy. The deadline for bidder questions was September 3, 2014, with state responses provided by September 5, 2014; bids were due September 12, 2014, at 1:00 PM Mountain Time, with public bid opening at 2:00 PM the same day and a projected contract start date of September 20, 2014. The initial price agreement term runs from contract execution through September 30, 2015, with four optional one-year renewal periods available for a maximum five-year term.

This procurement contains no specific set-aside designations for disadvantaged enterprises, though vendors may self-certify as Minority and Women-owned Businesses (M/WBEs) or Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) and small businesses with 25 or fewer full-time equivalent employees on the required forms. Incumbent vendors holding current state price agreements for related products include SWSH Mt Hood Manufacturing, Specialty Chemicals & Systems Inc., Dart Container Corporation, Georgia Pacific Tissue, and SCA Tissue North America, though the current historical purchasing data does not specify which vendors hold active agreements. Awarded contractors must provide secure chemical dispensing systems, maintain them at no cost to ordering entities, respond to emergency service calls within two hours verbally and one business day on-site, and conduct monthly inspections and training in English with optional multilingual capabilities. Historical annual spending for laundry and ware wash products totals approximately $622,000, distributed across state agencies (74 percent, or approximately $458,223), institutions of higher education (5 percent, or approximately $33,067), and political subdivisions (21 percent, or approximately $130,962). Awarded contractors must maintain market basket pricing for the first 12 months and may request price increases only once per 12-month period thereafter with documented cost justifications; additionally, contractors must remit a one percent quarterly administrative fee to the State Treasurer based on total reported sales volumes.