Per Christensen at the IPM Essen, Germany.
Popularity
Over the last year, the popularity of green plants increased sharply. According to Per Christensen, the demand for greens has been increasing over the years and the last two in particular. "Our target group changed from supplying the older, 50plus, generation to the younger generation, who are more active on online platforms like social media through which many trends are picked up, shared and spread easily. And fortunately, green plants has become a trend. Designers are using them in their home interiors and they fit the healthy lifestyle as they are known to purify the air."
Selling has become easier
This popularity is reflected in the sales and in particular the ease of selling the product as selling green plants has not been that easy several years ago. "Over the last years, we have seen a rapid increase in demand and we have therefore increased our farm with 1 ha last winter. However, I do not know if demand for greens are still increasing, but what I do know is that we can sell our products more easily. Nowadays, our customers find it very important to have green plants in their assortment and they know we are experienced growers as we are a growing green plant business for almost 50 years now."
Introducing a concept to survive
There are not that many Danish indoor green plant growers with this many years of experience. "Being a green plant grower has been very challenging. About ten years ago, the demand and therefore prices were low. For this reason, many Danish growers stopped producing green plants as they could not keep their head above water", says Christensen. Tingdal decided to continue, but realized that they had to change something, so they came up with a concept, the so-called Green Interior concept. "By investing in quality, larger plants and showing the end customer how to use it, we were able to stand out and make our products recognizable. And I think it helped us to pass these challenging times," he says. Currently, the Green Interior concept for indoor plants consists of 26 different varieties of which 16 are Peperomia varieties, which is their main crop.
For more information
Gartneriet Tingdal
Per Christensen
Email: per@tingdal.dk
www.tingdal.dk