For Delamore, pragmatism is key. “Whenever buyers come round, their first question is always, ‘What’s new?’” Wayne Eady, company director, explains. “Well, I’m not sure I really believe in the ‘new’ in that sense. It’s not that sort of industry. Unless there’s something that’s a genuine breakthrough, it seems to me that there’s an undue emphasis on ‘the new’. Novelties aren’t what people go to garden centres for. What we prefer is to focus on growing those plants that sell well, better and better every time.”
‘Keep it simple’ is Eady’s motto, and the watchword that has driven this business to five-fold expansion in the past decade. For Delamore, doing the right things right, refining the process rather than embarking on bold brand re-plumbing, or on wheeling and dealing to generate false economies, are what they see as their route to success.
Today, he’s the brains behind the more visible public face of Peter Wood, prime minister to Wood’s president, spending his time at headquarters, building the systems that have allowed Delamore to succeed. “Peter chooses what goes in the catalogue, then hands it over to me to set about growing it,” he explains.
Over the past 13 years, he and Wood have taken the business from a relatively unspectacular chrysanthemum nursery, and turned it into a lean powerhouse of young plants, turning over some £14 million per annum, and winning a stack of awards into the bargain, including a Young Grower Of The Year for Eady himself.
The basis of their winning philosophy has always been an ability to hone in laser-like on what truly matters, like efficiency. While he’s spent his whole life in horticulture since leaving school at 16, Eady sees himself as more of a ‘factory manager’ now.
“I just fell into horticulture. There was a nursery near my home, and I found a Saturday job there… and it just expanded. I found I didn’t mind it, but I’m not sure I’ve ever been madly keen on plants. What fascinates me is the logical challenge of designing a system to maximise efficiency. It’s an industrial process nowadays. I don’t exactly wander around with a pair of secatours...”
Delamore presently has around 4,000 customers on its cash & carry database, plus a fleet of delivery vehicles shipping its 700-odd varieties across the country, as well as a modest amount to France and Eire. And while it’s true that Eady doesn’t actually prowl the glasshouses with a pair of clippers, a sense of ownership and detail permeates his approach.
“Again, for us, it’s about keeping it simple,” he suggests. “Too many growers start buying in stock from here or there and cross-selling to boost their range. We are in a very fortunate position, in that everything we sell, we grow here, on one site. If there’s a problem with anything, I can just walk out this door and see exactly what that problem is.”
Four years ago, the company was forced to give up the lease on its Wisbech, Cambridgeshire site. Rather than view it as a challenge, they seized the opportunity to move to a new, 54 acre, £5 million site in nearby Wisbech St Mary’s. The new buildings incorporate a modern, well-insulated, well-regimented glasshouse complex, with all the energy savings that implies. Eady reckons that, with better insulation and fewer external walls, they’ve shed 30 percent of their energy bill since transplanting.
They have benefited, too, from several sessions with the Carbon Trust, who recently took workers on a three-day course to learn how to adjust greenhouse levels to optimise carbon consumption.
“Working with the Carbon Trust was very helpful,” Eady suggests. “Not only because with the possibility of carbon footprinting we’re all looking to minimise consumption, but because in most instances reducing carbon consumption is actually synonymous with reducing energy consumption.”
A strategy of constant reinvestment in technology has underpinned much of Delamore’s recent success. Glass, computers and plastic structures have led to improvements in propagation facilities and the production of consistently higher quality plants. At present, the glasshouse structure spans 15 acres, but with space to burn out back, any further expansion can be easily accommodated.
For Eady, it’s the ideas of his business hero, Richard Branson, that have underlain the firm’s ascent.
“He was someone who often didn’t know a lot about the industries he was getting into, but he had clear, simple principles underlying what he wanted to achieve. Ultimately, his attitude was ‘let’s do it’, and that’s definitely something we try and imbue in our staff here.
“If there’s a problem, or a query, we encourage people to solve it off their own back - get an answer, find a solution, rather than deferring, or waiting around for someone who might have greater authority. I like to think that’s something that comes across when people phone up. You can always get a direct answer from us. We try not to ever ‘get back’ to people.”
The Delamore system is streamlined to the extent that the team can turn around orders in a single week, by anticipating demand, and growing stock to match it, even without the orders on-hand. “Obviously, it’s a system that has its defects,” Eady muses. “When spring was bustling, we had our own people, but now that business has drooped as we move to summer, we’re losing a lot of stock. But it’s important for people to know that you’ll have something when they need it, or else they’ll drift elsewhere.”
Anyone wanting further evidence of how ‘lean’ the firm has become ought only to look at its management team. Out of its high-season staff of around 275, there are only three office managers, and in total only seven people in total who man the Delamore nerve centre.
Beneath the office staff, the company has some 75 permanent employees, plus another 200-odd seasonal hands who work the summer, predominantly drawn from Eastern Europe.
In spite of their rural isolation and the manual nature of the work, Eady says the business has absolutely minimal staff turnover.
“You can replace compost pretty easily. But people are not something you can just acquire. We don’t just say that we value our people - we pay around 30 percent above the national minimum wage in order to keep them. Everyone’s got options - if we didn’t pay them a wage that gives them some comfort in their lives, they’d just drift away.”
His Eastern European labour pool is stable, too, with the same faces returning year after year, something he’s particularly pleased with.
“You have to treat the seasonal labourers equally. You can’t discriminate against either of your labour pools, or else there’ll be friction, so they get the same terms, and the same rates of pay as all our other workers.”
Beyond the Wisbech site, the company has moved up the food chain, acquiring Yoder Toddington and Proculture nurseries. They are reportedly ‘still reeling’ from the increase in business, despite the subdued summer they’re now experiencing after a good spring. Beyond these, the company presently has ‘no firm expansion plans’, although they are experimenting with a range of ready-to-plant young salad crops for household gardeners, and a range of ‘intermediates’ - plants slightly more mature than their young plants siblings. “There’s a limit to how far we can grow them without cutting onto our customers’ market, though,” he warns.
And in spite of the likely advent of the New Age Of Tesco, he remains upbeat about Delamore’s prospects. “We supply predominantly to the smaller garden centres, and I think the big multiples are catering to a different subset. We think that they will persist, because you can stop by for a chat and some proper advice, whereas the bigger chains are all about knocking out a very streamlined range very cheaply, with no frills.
“Consolidation is inevitable, and the garden centre industry is certainly not immune to it. In many ways, it’s long overdue.”
For Eady, it’s efficiency that remains king, and all must bow before the market. Which may be why, for Delamore, the future holds few worries. Keeping it simple, obeying the laws of commerce and paying close attention to your customers, are the best insurance against these choppy times.
No comments yet