Brexit
"The UK will keep consuming flowers, even though the Brexit and the higher prices", concluded one of the initiators, Cécile Duval when traveling in the UK for a month after the Brexit. "The nurseries did very well in autumn, they sold about 20 percent more flowers compared to last year, so this looks promising", says Cécile. "Of course, no one knows what will happen next, but we notice that they still import a lot and young and special plants in particular."
Owners of the nine french nurseries; Scrive, Engandou, Gaurrat, Chatelain, Javoy, l'Orme Monferrat, Guillot Bourne II, Ripaud, Pilté.
Starting up
The aim of Les pépinières de France is to offer British buyers access to a broad range of French plants and enables them to better streamline their business by reducing the amount of contact persons for trading.
In November 2016, they had their first shipments to the UK; the Taxus Baccata, a Topiary tree variety. "It is not cultivated in the UK and seems to be well demanded", says Cécile. Next to the Topiaries, they have more to offer as each of the nine growers in this cooperation has its own specialty. Lagerstroemia, Magnolia, Japanese Maples, Fruits trees, Climbing plants, Dwarf-Conifers, Specimen trees and multistems, and French Roses are also part of the assortment. Currently, the Topiary trees are, together with the shrubs in containers and the climbers, the most demanded products from Les Pepinieres de France in the UK.
"We had a good start, but we still need time to make ourselves known in the market", says Cécile. For this reason, they established an office in London. "In this way, we can regularly meet our clients and be present on the field", says Cécile. And when becoming known in the market, you need good quality and not to forget affordable products. However, keeping the prices attractive is not always that easy. "When starting up, logistics are a big thing. We do not ship that large volumes yet, so it is a challenge to keep the prices attractive to our clients." But we know logistics is a hot question in trading plants abroad so we are working hard to make attractive offers to our clients inclusive of transport costs.
Upper left picture: Magnolia 'Mont Blanc', bottom left picture: rose 'Jardin de Granville' and right picture: Lagerstroemia Indiya Charms
Being innovative
"We do not only want to offer buyers French plants, but also rare and exclusive plants. We specialize in large plants, we have plants of 1,5m high and bigger, in 10 liters plus containers and in root balls." At the IPM, they presented the magnolia 'Mont Blanc' cov and the rose 'Jardin de Granville' that were not promoted on an international scale before. One of their breeders in the cooperation has also been working on a new range of lagerstroemia named Indiya Charms. "The majority of the lagerstroemia varieties do well in the South of Europe, but not many do well in the Northern part of Europe because of lower temperatures and less sun. So, he decided to work on some varieties that will flower well in these countries. Currently, we have planted a trial in the UK and Germany. In three years, we will certainly have the results."
The team of Les pépinières de France at the IPM Essen.
Future plans
In the coming years, Les pépinières de France try to develop further in the UK market and try to go deeper in this market. "In order to become more known, we will exhibit at the Four Oaks show in September for example." At the same time, they will continue looking after the European clients of their members in the cooperation. Afterwards having established a good position in the UK market, they are eager to expand in Europe. "We are still focusing on the UK market, but we will soon expend in other European countries like, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. For this reason we attended the IPM Essen last month."
"All in all, we are doing well. We are just a one-year old company and as a young company it always takes a while to get things running. Offering unique plants in sizes and varieties as well as great quality is our daily aim and we will focus on this over the next year while keeping our logistic costs as low as possible."
For more information:
Les Pépinières de FranceCécile Duval
Nurseries sales representative
Tel: +33 672 942 605
E: sales@lespepinieresdefrance.com
www.lespepinieresdefrance.com