The Plymouth-based company said the accreditation was based on formalising the systems and procedures that it already had in place.

John Hardaker, commercial manager at eight-staffed Graphicomm Digital, said: "Being a small focussed team, we are able to react quickly and without the overheads of larger companies, yet still provide top-level accreditations which will hopefully give us an edge."

The company tenders for local government and NHS contracts, and Hardaker said the accreditations will help it score higher on the pre-qualification questionnaires which will give it more opportunities to reach the final stages of tendering.

He said the process of getting the accreditations should be a prerequisite for companies, and said it was "absolutely" worth the cost.

Hardaker is also looking at FSC chain of custody, which he says his council clients are interested in.

Graphicomm Digital's sectors include local government, large corporates and SMEs. It is traditionally a litho-based commercial printer and has recently moved into short-run digital and wide-format print and is currently looking into upgrading its Xerox digital press.

The company plans to double the size of its premises after gaining preferred supplier status with a county council.