Early responses from a trial being undertaken to promote locally produced garden plants have shown that around 95 percent of customers would buy a plant grown in this country over one produced abroad.
The ‘Home Grown’ trial, which Commercial Grower reported on last month, has developed a symbol and promotional material to alert gardeners to the advantages of choosing locally grown plants over imports. The initiative is currently being trialed in a limited number of garden centres to assess customer reactions.
Research carried out earlier in the year indicated that few gardeners take the origin of their plants into consideration when making a purchase.
“Many of our millions of gardeners will not be aware that so many of the plants they buy now come from abroad,” said local nurserymen Bill Godfrey and Morris May.
However, the trial has seen a change of attitude since its start.
“Undoubtedly the current high profile debate on issues surrounding the carbon footprint and the trend in recent years to buy food from local growers has led to a sea change in consumer attitudes which has helped our initiative enormously,” said Stephen Sands of Impetus Marketing, who developed the promotional material.
The results of the trial should be available in the autumn.
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