Intertek Acquires Retail Product Benchmarking Company 4th Strand
21 Mar 2012
Oak Brook, IL – Intertek, a leading provider of quality and safety services to a wide range of industries around the world, announces the acquisition of 4th Strand, an Atlanta, Ga.-based company that specializes in improving retailers’ purchasing processes and merchandising strategy using proprietary performance benchmarking analysis for retail products, including both national and private label-branded products.
“The acquisition of 4th Strand enhances the quality and safety testing services we already offer our retail customers by enabling us to provide critical benchmarking services required by global retailers for better insight into the performance of their merchandise while satisfying time-to-market demands,” said Gene Rider, president of Intertek Consumer Goods North America. “Intertek already works seamlessly with our retail customers’ product integrity and quality assurance staff, now we can deliver added value to their merchandising staff as well.”
For global retailers, comparative product analysis and benchmarking are emerging tools that are essential to develop higher quality and more competitive private label brands. Building on 4th Strand’s capabilities, Intertek will integrate the company’s defined processes into its Consumer Goods Outsourcing business line to identify user-based and critical-to-quality performance features in order to create tailored test plans for retail customers, leading to insights that merchants can immediately apply to increase their bottom line and improve the performance of their products.
Media Inquiries:
Amy Paille, Intertek Consumer Goods North America
Phone: +1.630.481.3163
Email: amy.paille@intertek.com
About Intertek
Intertek (www.intertek.com) is a leading provider of quality and safety solutions serving a wide range of industries around the world. From auditing and inspection, to testing, quality assurance and certification, Intertek people are dedicated to adding value to customers’ products and processes, supporting their success in the global marketplace. Intertek has the expertise, resources and global reach to support its customers through its network of more than 1,000 laboratories and offices and over 30,000 people in more than 100 countries around the world.