crop cultivation
Vegetables:
Here Today,
Growing Tomorrow
Expect your vegetable and herb sales to increase again in 2010,
but don’t stop there. It’s time to leverage and attract more gardeners
and develop them into lifelong customers!
By Dianna Turner
V
egetable and herb category sales are
increasing across North America, and
it would be easy to sit back and simply
tabulate the immediate sales. Do not
stop there! The greatest opportunity in
2010 for growers and retailers is to be proactive
in leveraging the increasing interest in vegeta-
bles. This is your year to add value to the cate-
gory and also drive more business to other prod-
ucts. Vegetable gardening is more than a “trend”
that’s attracting new short-term consumers, but
the year 2010 represents a huge opportunity to
develop those shoppers and create more lifelong
gardeners to ensure the future of our industry.
Data Behind the Trend with vegetable pots edging out fl ats by almost
The 2008 USDA Floriculture Crops Summary, $4 million. Pots also saw the larger percentage
released in April 2009, shows an increase in total increase over the 2007 report : 31.3 percent versus
veggie sales of about 18 percent over 2007. What 13.9 percent for fl ats. This shows that much of
other category has generated so much excitement the growth in the category is coming from larger
and media news coverage for our industry in the plants and premium potted vegetables, not tra-
past decade? When you dig a little bit deeper, ditional fl ats and packs.
there’s more to learn from the numbers. So where are all of these additional vegetable
USDA breaks “vegetable type plant” sales plants going? Surveys conducted for the Garden
down into two types: fl ats and potted. Histori- Writers Association Foundation indicate that
cally, fl ats have made up the majority of total as you may expect, they are going into people’s
Photos: Ball Horticultural Company
sales. This was reversed in the 2008 Summary gardens and patio pots. Almost half (44 percent)
34 GPN February 2010
www.gpnmag.com
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