The company, established five years ago, currently works with retailers in the US, including major brands Target, Walgreens, Lowe’s and Best Buy.

It checks the quality of print production on behalf of retailers by ascertaining the clients’ desired minimum quality requirements, conducting print facility certifications at the retailers’ printers across the globe, performing on site press checks and analysing packaging in store.

Justin Lewis, business development director (Europe), said: “Our US clients were in a situation five years ago of giving the control of the packaging to the person who sources the product in that part of the globe. But then it’s inevitable that quality will fail when pricing is squeezed. 

“Brands were struggling to control what was going out there and didn’t know about a problem until it was on the shelf. Even if they discovered there was a problem they couldn’t stop it reaching the shelf as it would cause a delay. So what we’re doing is implementing standards at source.”

GMI currently has over 500 packaging printers certified worldwide, including ten European printers.

The company does not yet work on behalf of any European retailers or print managers, with the UK sales office a way of testing appetite here.

Lewis said: “Our first stop is to get conversations going with big retailers such as Tesco. Depending on demand, we are hoping to establish a European evaluation centre next.”

Of the incentive for UK and European printers to pro-actively seek out this certification ahead of retailers demanding it, Lewis added: “In the US and elsewhere around the world printers have gotten onboard. I would expect the same to happen here. It’s a way of making yourself visible to large retailers. Then you become one of only three printers in Germany for example to have this.”

GMI certification costs printers a $3,000 (£1,830) one-off fee. 

GMI will exhibit at Packaging Innovations on 26-27 February where it will launch GMI Prime, a new 'cost-effective, scalable' quality management programme.