Royal Warrant title could be gained by companies or persons in Great Britain who supply the Queen, the Prince of Edinburgh or the Prince of Wales with their products/services for at least five years. All the three can honor only one supplier in a certain field, but the same firm can be honored by all the three at the same time.
The owner of the Royal Warrant has to comply with very strict rules. In return, it gets the permission to use the royal coat of arms of the donator on its website, printed materials and advertisements. The title is valid for five years, then it is being reviewed. If the quality or the supply is not appropriate anymore, the title is revoked. This review is done automatically if the supplier dies, gives up the business, goes bankrupt or the firm is sold. The procedure to be followed is defined for every case to keep assuredly the expected high quality.
Privileges and titles were given to royal suppliers already since the middle ages. The relationship between the royal house and the suppliers had been regulated during several hundred years and the related affairs were assigned to an organization. Nowadays there are only British firms – except for a very few – on the list of Royal Warrants from all fields of life, also from the industries connected with interior design, like fabric, paint, wallpaper and furniture manufacturing. Presently there are ca. 800 firms like this. Some of them got and kept the Royal Warrant title for more than a hundred years. Royal Warrant Holders Association works since 1840 which as a controlling institution takes care of compliance for quality requirements and provides the communication between its members and the various departments of the Royal House. The Association also checks that the royal titles are used by only the authorized ones complying to the rules.
Of course, the products of these companies are available for anyone. Their advantage is that the customer can be sure about being served by a reliable company at high quality.