Our Standards. Your Guarantee.
Lorcan Mekitarian, Chair of the Cleaning & Hygiene Suppliers Association, explains why accreditation schemes are vital for the industry.
The Kimberly-Clark Professional Golden Service Awards have been recognising the very best in FM and contract cleaning for over 30 years. Aptly, the 2022 awards include a new category: ‘Going the Extra Mile’. It will acknowledge those who have delivered above and beyond during these extraordinary times.
The Cleaning & Hygiene
Suppliers Association (CHSA) are delighted to be the Gold Sponsor of
these awards, proudly giving our support to this celebration of the talented people who maintain standards in the cleaning sector.
Maintaining standards
This is at the heart of everything the CHSA does. In 1997 we launched our first Accreditation Scheme. It was for manufacturers of Soft Tissue products and gave the buyers of these products the confidence that ‘what’s on the box is what’s in the box’.
Today we have six Accreditation Schemes. They are for manufacturers of paper-based and woven products, plastic- based products, cotton-based products and cleaning chemicals, for general manufacturers, and for distributors of cleaning and hygiene products.
The integrity of our schemes is very important. It’s why in 2021, our Independent Inspector conducted 143 audits, checking more than 3800 individual products, and found compliance with each Scheme and our Code of Practice remained high. This means we can guarantee our members:
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Trade ethically and sustainably; Provide quality fit for purpose products; Make sure ‘what’s on the box is what’s in the box’.
As well as the auditing process, we conduct due diligence on every new applicant to the Association. This process involves confirming all marketing and product claims can be substantiated by hard evidence, for example EN test results.
This detailed due diligence became increasingly important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pressure on the supply chain
When the pandemic hit, demand for cleaning and hygiene products soared, almost overnight. People urgently needed hand sanitisers, gloves, soft tissue, aprons, gowns, wipes, clinical waste sacks, and cleaning chemicals in vast quantities.
This unprecedented demand presented a huge challenge. Struggling with the constraints of the lockdown themselves, our members worked hard to manufacture and distribute these essential products to the frontline, but the raw materials and component parts were under severe pressure.
Sprays and soap pumps, primarily manufactured in China and Italy, were in short supply. Nitrile disposable gloves and single use aprons have traditionally been made in the Far East and the supply of both was hit by the combination of demand going up and supply being constricted by lockdowns in China and Malaysia. Supply of non-woven wipes spiked. Most of these wipes are polypropylene-based, a material also integral in the manufacture of face masks.
The combination of pressures pushed supply chains to the limits. Demand for biocides and virucides also escalated at a time when the UK production capacity for these products had declined.
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