Now we`re all back from a well earned break during the so called ‘summer’, we have to start thinking about the fast approaching new season. This means facing up to the reality of an even tougher and more competitive marketplace.

For ornamental growers, the recent study done for HTA by ADAS on ‘Ornamental Supply Chain Management’ is another stark reminder that we have to accelerate the pace of change in the way we have historically done things. The report essentially compared the relative efficiencies of distribution logistics in the UK and Holland, so we could understand better why the Dutch seem to have a competitive edge in cost which enabled them to also offer a better service.

The study demonstrated quite clearly that the Dutch route to market - and that means to our market, in particular - had lower costs per unit of plants delivered as a result of higher volumes per vehicle, which were more easily consolidated because Dutch growers work more closely together.

Clearly the Dutch aren`t going to raise their costs and prices for us. So there`s no alternative, if we wish to compete and therefore survive in the future, to getting our costs down and using this lower cost base to fund a better delivery service.

And this requires what many would, in the past, have believed to be unacceptably drastic action. The creation of shared distribution hubs around the country, thus moving away from using vehicles owned by individual businesses, is a clear and reasonably painless route to dramatically reduce costs. This means that we would be able to service retail customers as and when those customers need it.

We cannot walk away from this, believing our customers are being unreasonable. We`re already seeing garden retail multiples like Wyevale and Dobbies demanding cost and service improvements on a scale more familiar with the DIY and supermarket chains.

Does anyone still seriously believe we won`t see more of this? And that the independent garden centre buying groups won`t have to start making the same demands?

Fortunately, some braver producers are now looking at such moves more positively. The Midlands` experiment which HTA has been helping the Midland Regional Growers Group with, has survived and can prosper further.

A new group is getting off the ground in the south east, and will hopefully interface with the Midlands project to maximise the efficiencies from back loading and compatible systems. Some large producers have themselves developed their own integrated logistic services.

So it can be done, here in the UK as well as in Holland. And if we use such co-operation and service levels as a model for closer working together in other areas, like staff utilisation and sales and marketing, then there is a bigger price than mere survival to be won.

We can really start to use the strength of home sourced plants, with better quality levels and range - and fewer plant miles - and start to make what we used to call in the good old days ‘profit’.

Using some of this to reinvest in further improvements in process productivity and product information would see our industry again becoming sustainable, with the ability to see off any threat from overseas. We can then focus on enjoying the benefits of higher volume sales that will be available from the new breed of garden retailers.