With royal weddings, anniversaries and pregnancies making the headlines we decided to investigate how a company becomes an official supplier to the royal family. We’ve all seen invoices or vans with the “appointed by” royal warrant on but how do you actually get one?. How would the queen get to take a bite of our delicious carrot cakes ?
Well apparently there’s a website. It is 2017 after all. Quite an interesting site too. But first a bit of history from the royal warrants website. “The history of the Royal Warrant can be traced back to medieval times, when competition for Royal favour was intense and the Monarch had the pick of the country’s best tradespeople. By the 15th century, the Lord Chamberlain, as head of the Royal Household, formally appointed tradespeople with a Royal Warrant of Appointment – a practice that continues to this day”. So there you have it. Having the royal warrant probably opened many doors hundreds of years ago , not so many now. About 800 companies currently are allowed to display the royal warrant and companies are added and removed on a monthly basis. There are a number of cake suppliers on the list including Chalmers in Edinburgh and also Event – A – Loo Ltd which supplies temporary toilets – somehow we don’t think her majesty spends a penny on them though!
To apply couldn’t be easier ” Companies can apply for a Royal Warrant after they have supplied the Households of HM The Queen, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh or HRH The Prince of Wales with goods or services for at least five years out of seven (to include during the 12 months before applying).” and that’s it.
So all in all quite a straight forward process. Open to everybody. Lets see if this time next year we’ll have the Royal Warrants pasted over our vans dashing through the traffic to Buckingham Palace to delivery our Red Velvet cakes and cupcakes – If only the Royal Warrants meant immunity from parking tickets our drivers would be ecstatic.