association comment Improving standards


The Garden Centre Association (GCA) chairman Julian Winfield sees the value in the association’s inspection program


As a GCA member, our garden centres at Haskins are the window for the organisation’s annual standards inspection, which is undertaken by one of five GCA inspectors.


To be a GCA member you need to pass an inspection annually and the results are fed back to your garden centre team and they will be able to compare with previous years. At Haskins we have used this as a key part of our continuous improvement culture. The GCA hosted a meeting in February entitled: ‘How to achieve inspection excellence’. This is attended by our managers and key staff, which helps them prepare the centres for the season ahead. They then attend a summer meeting when the inspector for the area feeds back the results and announces an area winner.


These presentations are repeated at our national conference, when the Garden Centre and Destination Garden Centre of the year are announced.


As a record and a way of sharing best practice from the


inspection process, an annual publication is sent out to GCA members called The Best of British Garden Centres.


Our teams at Haskins treat the GCA inspection process seriously and genuinely look forward to the feedback. This process started more than 50 years ago and is one of the main benefits of being a GCA member. As you can see from all this, we’re very much orientated to sharing best practice and our members meet up regularly in their regional groups to chat about taking the industry forward.


Our organisation, the GCA, represents nearly 200 garden centres nationwide. Through sharing information and our inspection programme, we help members to achieve high standards in customer service, plant quality and reliability.


If you’re a garden centre that would like to join us, please do get in touch by calling us on


01244 952170, visiting www.gca.org.uk, logging on to www.facebook.com/pages/ GardenCentreAssociation or following us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GC_Association.


Smart gardens – thoughts for the future


British Home Enhancement Trade Association (BHETA)home enhancement director Paul Grinsell believes smart technology for the garden is a future opportunity worth exploring


The International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago devoted a whole hall to smart home technology. Given the media attention given to smart products, this is hardly surprising, but what might be is the future opportunity for garden centres. For those of us already at least a little familiar with the smart home concept in the UK, it is more than likely that we associate the trend with remotely controlled, intelligent systems which we can use to operate home heating, home air quality and home security including locks, alarms and lighting. Equally strong in Chicago however were some classic cook shop products using smart technology such as the pan that will – via the consumer’s smart phone – manage its own temperature to produce the steak that meets the exact outcome specified by the cook, or the fermenter that will turn garden fruit into the perfect beverage as specified via an app by the consumer. But, leaving those aside, Chicago also previewed some potential applications for smart technology in the garden plant arena. The smart microgarden is a product concept that produces herbs and vegetables – to


GCU May 2017


specification – ready for the cook to turn into perfect dishes to impress the most aspirational guest.


An example is SproutsIO, which makes the growing of culinary plants easier and more precise in terms of results, thanks to smart technology. It claims to make the growing of kitchen herbs, fruits, veg including tubers and root crops, salads – even tea blends – a pleasurable indoor experience, which responds to the grower/home chef’s particular needs. It integrates a smart device with a selection of seed refills and software services. With integrated LEDs, camera sensors, hybrid hydroculture, Wi-Fi – and dishwasher safe kit – its unique growing ‘recipes’ optimise light, water and nutrient delivery to the grower/chef’s specification regardless of season.


Fanciful? Well, it’s true that this particular product concept is not yet ready for the UK market, but it – or something very like it – soon will be. Moreover, when I attend the Hardware Show in Las Vegas this May, I fully expect to see more smart applications for the garden in the Lawn and Garden Show, which is a part of it.


So, here’s a thought for the future. Just as with any completely new concept, the retailers’ secret is to focus on the ‘story’ as opposed to the technology. Technology appeals to early adopters, but most consumers want to know how its features will benefit their lives. The story therefore is ‘become a better cook’, or perhaps ‘become a better host’, thanks to investment in a better, grow your own garden, 2017-style.


It’s crucial that garden retailers embrace the potential of this new wave of technology, educating themselves and listening for the moment that consumers are ready to engage. Failure to do so risks falling behind competitors. • For more information, contact BHETA on 0121 237 1130 or visit the website at www.bheta.co.uk


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