With care for people and the planet core to their brand values, Hallmark UK’s commitment to continuous improvement and adherence to quality, environmental and ethical standards is a given. Working with a certification body that echoes those values and adds value to the business is vital.
About Hallmark
Founded in 1910 and headquartered in Kansas City, USA, Hallmark Inc employs more than 20,000 people worldwide. The company has a diverse product portfolio, offering a wide range of greeting cards, gift wrap and related products in more than 100 countries. Hallmark UK operates in the largest card market outside of the US, with over 400 employees based between their subsidiary head office in Bradford and warehouse and manufacturing sites in Brighouse.
The Challenge
With integrity and sustainability at the heart of the Hallmark brand, and high customer expectations in the retail space, continuously improving quality and sustainability performance is key to Hallmark UK. As emphasized by Hallmark UK’s Internal Compliance Manager, Ann Casemore: “Our teams share a passion for delivering the right product at the right time for the right customers, and we have been using ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 as a tool for continuous improvement for over 20 years. We are always reviewing processes and changes in standards and looking for best practices from teams both internal and external to the business.”
Another important issue for Hallmark is reliability in terms of audit scheduling. “As the compliance team is well-established but relatively small, and any schedule changes have a knock-on effect across the business, it is essential that we have guaranteed dates in the diary for all our compliance audits,” Ann explains. “So, finding a certification body with a good reputation for audit scheduling was very important to us. Equally, we were looking for a certification partner whose auditors echo Hallmark’s passion for integrity and continuous improvement, as well as take the time to get to know the Hallmark culture and help drive improvements.“
True to that ethos, when Hallmark’s UK ISO 9001 Quality and ISO 14001 Environmental Management Systems certificates were due for renewal in 2023, Ann and her team felt it was the ideal time to change Certification Body and seek a value-add partnership to help them get more from their management systems.
“We know what we’re doing, but a different point of view can often help drive improvement,” she says. “We’re always looking to enhance our management system and the way we work and felt bringing in a new certification body would help that effort.”
The Solution
Hallmark switched to Intertek in 2023 for ISO 9001, ISO 14001, Quality and Sedex SMETA 2-pillar ethical audits, and, according to Ann Casemore, Hallmark’s recertification experience has been very successful following the transfer to Intertek.
“Intertek’s auditors were extremely professional, knowledgeable in their fields and thorough”, she says. “We felt comfortable with the way that they approached the audit and felt they added value by suggesting new approaches and ideas to drive improvements. In addition, working with Intertek ensures we have an auditor assigned to us with dates agreed, to meet all our audit programme needs.”
