Driving - Mr. Fothergill`s

WINTER 2014
Driving
customers to your
garden centre
Win a fully stocked
pallet display of Better
Lawn grass seed
worth over £650.
See page 4
re
Scan he
rade
for our t
website
As one of the leading domestic seed houses, with the Mr Fothergill’s, Johnsons and
Country Value brands, we begin the 2014 season with a programme designed to
drive customers to our garden centre partners.
We have significantly increased our
spend on public relations and, as part of
this package, have made a significant
investment in a new social media campaign
that is already gathering a strong army of
followers.
In addition to being on Facebook, Twitter
and LinkedIn, we also have a very popular
blog. This combination not only provides
the opportunity to tell gardeners about new
products, current offers and breaking news
but also enables us to engage directly with
our valued retail trade partners.
Tim Jeffries, commercial director of Mr
Fothergill’s Seeds, comments: “We have
already seen a great response to our new
presence on social media. It provides a
good platform to connect with our customers
and retail partners.
“In less than six months we have generated
a significant level of engagement across
all the social media platforms on which we
operate. We are very keen to encourage
garden centres and stockists to interact with
us in any way possible. Our aim is to give
back to those who support us.”
Tim’s appeal to garden centre owners
is: “If you stock our brands, follow us
online and let us know when you have
an in-store promotion or any other news.
We can then share your post with our
followers, spreading the word to the
rapidly expanding online growing
community.”
You can follow Mr Fothergill’s Seeds on
Twitter at @mrfothergill, on Facebook at
https://www.facebook.com/MrFothergills
and on LinkedIn. You can also find the blog
at http://blog.mr-fothergills.co.uk.
Mr Fothergill’s Nation of Gardeners is a
major social media and press campaign.
Read more about this on page 4. Stock up for the Little Gardeners
Johnsons’ Little Gardeners website (www.
little-gardeners.co.uk) encourages children
to get involved in growing and is packed
with fun educational activities to help them
learn along the way.
The easy to navigate website features the
Little Gardeners’ Academy section, which
explains the science of seeds to help
youngsters understand the growing process
and includes fun facts about vegetables,
plants and wildlife.
With useful ‘Growing Guides’ and a ‘Guide
to Symbols’ section on the website, children
will have a head start in the garden and
can begin to grow with confidence.
The innovative and fun website offers a
comprehensive product range specifically
targeted at “little gardeners”, including
flower seeds, kids pots and kits plus
vegetable seeds.
The colourful packaging featuring funky
cartoon characters is also purposely
designed to appeal to children and make
growing fun!
The Boys
of the Old
Brigade
Chelsea Pensioners, famed throughout
the world for their vivid scarlet tunics and
black tricorne hats or shako caps, will
benefit from Mr Fothergill’s appropriately
named Victoria Cross poppy being sold
to mark the centenary of the outbreak of
the First World War.
The pensioners are a regular sight
walking around at the equally famous
Chelsea Flower Show, which is based
in the grounds of the Royal Chelsea
Hospital, home to the “boys of the old
brigade”.
We will be donating 25p to the
hospital for each packet of Victoria
Cross poppy seeds sold during the four
years that will mark the full centenary of
The Great War.
“It is our small tribute to these famous
veterans and we hope it will bring them
some comfort in their retirement years,”
says Dave Carey, joint Managing
Director of Mr Fothergill’s Seeds.
For more information visit www.mr-fothergills.co.uk
Movers & Shakers:
d
g Mixe
Trailin
turtium
Nas
Wildflower
In our Autumn newsletter we looked at the
relative popularity of groups of vegetables
within our range. For this edition we are
focusing on flower seeds.
Wildlife
pice
ea Old S
P
t
e
e
w
S
With vegetables there is a large choice
but relatively few groups such as carrots,
tomatoes, onions etc... By contrast, flower
ranges generally offer a more varied
Best-selling flower varieties
(by volume sold in 2013)
Best-selling flower groups
(by volume sold in 2013) plus
percentage of total sales
1 Sunflower Giant Single
1 Sweet Peas – 16%
2. Sweet Pea Old Spice
2. Nasturtiums – 8.4%
3. Wildflower Wildlife Mix
3. Wild flowers – 6.6%
4. Nasturtium Trailing Mixed
4. Sunflowers – 5.0%
5. Sweet Pea Incense Mixed
5. Marigolds – 3.7%
6. Cosmos Sensation Mixed
6. Cosmos – 3.6%
7. Wildflower Cornfield Mix
7. Stocks – 3.2%
8. Sweet Pea Bouquet Mixed
8. Poppies – 2.8%
9. Lupin Russell Mixed
9. Cornflowers – 2.4%
10. Wild Poppy
10. Wallflowers – 2.4%
Sunflow
er Giant
Single
selection. There are therefore more family
groups represented by just one or two
varieties than you would find in a vegetable
range.
Our whole Mr. Fothergill’s vegetable
range is covered by around 50 common
groups but for flowers that number is over
double.
There are still some very popular major
groups of flowers that represent a large
proportion of the sales. Based on last
year’s sales about 62% of all flowers
seed sold were annuals, perennials were
about 24% and the rest were mixes and
biennials.
The league tables to the left show the top
ten best-selling single flower seed varieties
and the other shows the top ten bestselling
flowers groups. As you can see Sweet
Peas are unquestionably the most popular
flowers to grow from seed overall with
three appearing in the top ten varieties.
Mr Fothergill’s Lawn
Seed “highly rated”
Which? magazine recently announced its
findings from a lawn seed trial that has
been ongoing since 2012.
with a score of 67% (8% above the average
score).
The magazine examined 22 lawn seed
mixtures at regular monthly intervals from
2012 through until recently, when a special
wear-and-tear machine was used on the grass
to really put the lawn through its paces.
Better Lawn, with a special blend of fine
leafed ryegrass, chewings fescue and
creeping red fescue, was awarded four
stars in five of the nine categories including
germination, fineness, appearance, shoot
density and ground cover.
We are thrilled to announce that three of our
products were featured, and all scored very
well with Better Lawn coming a close second
Our Tough Lawn seed, a value for money
blend that is created for heavy wear areas,
was not far behind Better Lawn with a
score of 59%. Its highest score was also for
germination. The final product reviewed was
the premium Ultimate Lawn which scored
52%.
In the same lawn seed trial, the magazine
also assessed lawn repairs kits, in which Mr
Fothergill’s Patch Repair with ryegrass was
featured.
For a chance to win a fully stocked pallet
display of our highly rated Better Lawn grass
seed (worth over £650), turn to page 4.
Getting to know the
people behind the brand
In the last issue we began a series of pieces
that we hope will introduce you to some
of the people and departments that make
things happen here at Mr. Fothergill’s. Last
time we spoke to Vicky Reeves, our sales
administration team leader, and in this issue
we turn to James Maynard, who has the
grand job title of supply chain planner,
scheduler and analyst.
Great job title James, but what do you do?
It’s down to me and my team to use our
sales forecasts, and liaise with all elements
in the supply chain, to make sure we can
produce what we want on time with limited
waste. That includes purchasing of all items,
scheduling seed packing and the packaging
of any other of our goods - even if that
production is not on our Kentford site.
How did you get into this role?
I joined Mr. Fothergill’s almost 14 years ago
as a warehouse supervisor but through a
series of promotions I’ve made this role my
own. I have a team of four who have various
jobs that help make our production process
run smoothly.
Can you let us know a little about the
complexities of what you do?
I guess the best way to explain is to say that
we have 12,500 finished goods lines across
almost 40 different branded offers for both
the UK and overseas. Over the past twelve
months we have raised about 16,000 works
dockets or production requests, and can
pack up to 75 million packets in any year.
That being said, we have the capacity to
pack 180 million packets if we need to!
So what system helps you to work out
this?
We use an Oracle business system which
helps us greatly. It copes with some 38,000
different material combinations and almost
five million lines of data (every item on every
order is a line of data). We run a new
production plan at least once a week
and it has to run overnight as it slows
the whole system up - Vicky in the sales
admin department would tell me off if
I slowed things down during working
hours!!!
They have become so and I’m quite happy
with them. You also pick up lots of silly little
things, like the number of elastic bands we
use every year to wrap our seed packets is
around 9.5m – if you laid them end to end
they would stretch from here to Rome!
James Maynard,
supply chain
planner, scheduler
and analyst
When do you start the planning process
for the seed ranges?
Early! We started preparing for the
2014 season range in September 2012
when we looked at initial forecasts and
seed deletions. Over time, the marketing
teams started putting our seed collections
together so that I could run my first full
production plan in February 2013. We
started filling packets for delivery from
August 2013 with a continuous process
to make sure we are never out of stock
during the 2014 season. So it’s roughly
an 18 month process.
Congratulations
Jackie!
Everyone here at Mr Fothergill’s would
like to extend huge congratulations
to Jackie Blasbery who recently
competed in the Commonwealth
Powerlifting Championships in
Auckland, New Zealand.
Jackie, a production workflow coordinator for Mr Fothergill’s, came first in
both of her categories – the Women’s Un
Equipped and Equipped sections. Each
category has a section for squat,
benchpress and dead lift. In the Un
Equipped section, Jackie lifted 130 kg
in the squat, 82.5kg in the benchpress
and 165kg in the dead lift, and in the
Equipped section she lifted 152.5kg,
105kg and 180kg respectively. A
fantastic achievement!
So numbers are your game?
The Value of
Country Value
As some sectors of society find it difficult to
make financial ends meet, our Country Value
range of seeds is an ideal bridge, offering
customers quality flower and vegetable seeds
at some of the most attractive prices on the
UK high street.
With 149 varieties in the range and a
no-quibble guarantee, this is a value
brand that deserves to be on your shelves.
It is a single price point range with a
recommended selling price of 89p for
all packets. They are not, however, price
marked allowing you to sell at whatever
price you feel is appropriate.
Jackie has worked at Mr Fothergill’s for
nearly nine years.
We would like to wish her all the best in
her future powerlifting endeavours!
This can be your ideal price-fighting brand
that will not cannibalize existing, more
profitable sales of higher priced ranges.
Country Value appeals to a different market.
Lower prices are achieved by maintaining a
modest range with reduced seed fills and by
offering Country Value as an outright sale.
We do not accept returns with this range.
For more information visit www.mr-fothergills.co.uk
Nation Of Sweet pea contest returns
Gardeners
drives
research
into
Competition
sweet pea
preparation
Following the overwhelming success of
the 2013 Capel Manor College sweet pea
growing competition, we have recently relaunched the competition ready for 2014.
the entire competition can be found at
www.mr-fothergills.co.uk.
The event, held on Saturday 5 July at Capel
Manor College in North London, will have
four categories each having a £500 prize
money fund. Last year’s competition was
judged by our very own Jeff Fothergill,
gardening writer Peter Seabrook MBE and
Principal at Capel Manor College, Dr.
Steve Dowbiggin OBE.
Fascinating information is
already emerging from our
Nation of Gardeners campaign
as the sixteen gardeners located
throughout the UK plant and
monitor the parcels of seeds,
plants and bulbs that are sent out
to them each month.
The competition is not only to be entered
by those in the nearby area. Postal entries
are also accepted and we have designed
an ingenious way of ensuring that entries
from further afield can arrive safely using a
two-litre soft drinks bottle.
More information about postal entries and
To celebrate Better Lawn seed being rated
so highly by Which? magazine (see page
2), we are giving away a fully stocked,
pre-merchandised pallet display of our Better
Lawn grass seed (500g cartons), worth over
£650. Simply answer the following questions
based on information found in the newsletter.
1.What is the greatest weight that Jackie
RHS GROW YOUR OWN
Blasbery lifted in her recent New
Zealand competition?
RHS GROW YOUR OWN campaign 2.What
is our @ name
Information fed back from the gardeners
taking part has already resulted in planning
for a detailed study of how best to sow
sweet pea seeds. Some of the early results
from the October delivery of the Sir Henry
Cecil and Old Spice sweet peas indicated
differences in germination rates following
various methods of pre-treatment.
“Some of our NoGers – that is our name
for the gardeners – poured boiling water
over the seeds, soaked them overnight or
chipped the strong outer shells. Others just
planted them without doing anything,” says
Ian Cross, Mr Fothergill’s retail marketing
manager.
“It appears that some of these methods did
speed up germination and so we have
decided to conduct a proper laboratory trial
in the spring. It is a terrific example of how
the Nation of Gardeners is proving itself to
be so valuable.”
Follow the progress of the Nation of
Gardeners at the Mr Fothergill’s blog at
http://blog.mr-fothergills.co.uk, or by
following #nationofgardeners on Twitter.
continues to be
sponsored
In recognition of the continued expansion
of gardeners’ interest in grow your own
food, we are, for the third year, sponsoring
the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS)
Grow Your Own campaign.
The benefits of the sponsorship will have a
direct impact upon garden centres as it will
raise the profile of the link between the RHS
and Mr Fothergill’s.
There will be mutual links between the
Society’s website (www.rhs.org.uk) and our
own (www.mr-fothergills.co.uk). Our Mr
Fothergill’s logo will appear on the front of
seeds packets being inserted in the March
edition of the RHS’s journal, The Garden.
The logo will also feature on monthly email
newsletters, containing expert advice
on growing your own, that will be sent
to 70,000 campaign members, again
featuring a link to our website.
FOR YOUR BUSINESS
3.The Capel Manor
competition is for
which plant?
Email all three of your
answers to [email protected] to be in
with a chance of winning.
The winner will be chosen
at random from all of the
correct entries.
Deadline for entries is 10th March 2014.
Last Competition winner
In the last newsletter we gave away a free
collection of Johnsons World Botanic Seeds
worth £846.50 (RRP).
We are pleased to announce that
the winner is Thompsons Plant and
Garden Centre in Chislehurst. Many
congratulations!
“The RHS is Britain’s most prestigious
horticultural organisation and we are
delighted to be associated with it on this
massively important campaign,” says Mr
Fothergill’s joint managing director, John
Fothergill. “Your customers who are RHS
members will immediately recognise the
link when they see our displays in store.”
General Enquiries: 01638 751161
GROWING BRANDS
on Twitter?
Fax: 01638 554085
Email: [email protected]
www.mr-fothergills-trade.com
www.johnsons-trade.com
Mr Fothergill’s Seeds Ltd, Gazeley Road,
Kentford, Newmarket, Suffolk CB8 7QB