Garden centre personality Rosie Bone brings her new ideas for garden retail to the HortWeek Podcast this week this week.
Founder of the World's End Garden Centre in 1970 with Len Bone, Rosie puts her success in garden retail down a focus on customer service, looking after your staff and above all "value for money". She argues if you get those three right, other considerations such as location are almost irrelevant.
She discusses her passion, which is sustainable garden retailing.
"Profit isn't a dirty word... but I think in this day and age we have to start to recognise that there is an environmental cost to everything any of us do".
She says that imports from China cannot be avoided in many product areas, but that carbon footprint could be offset by focusing on plant-based options in the restaurant:
"It's not about telling customers what they should and shouldn't eat, but presenting [food] in a way that encourages customers to make [a plant-based] choice for themselves but that can be done with clever marketing, clever menus."
After a period away from the industry Rosie reveals the garden business that revived her interest in and passion for it and what they do so well.
And she discusses some significant gaps in the market that garden centres, with their large footprints and nature-oriented client base, could capitalise on.
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