"There's one part I never have to think about, and that's whether or not Jiffy is going to work"

At Jiffy, they strive to deliver a quality product and provide a great partnership with their clients. They achieve this through the long-term relationships between clients and their Jiffy regional account managers.

The regional account managers are experts within Jiffy, whose goal is to develop a thorough understanding of the client's operation in order to assist the client with the best product recommendations and help create customized solutions for their growing needs. This type of relationship allows for collaboration, communication, and long-term trust, which is vital to the success of Jiffy.

Jiffy representatives recently visited two Minneapolis-based client locations: Malmborg's Garden Center and Wagners Garden Center. Both family-owned businesses, Wagners and Malmborg are known for their long history, trust within the community, and desire to continually create more streamlined growing processes and consistency with their deliverables.

Both clients have successfully used Jiffy's Preforma product to speed growth and produce more uniform and usable crops. Additionally, both have leveraged their relationship with Jiffy to create customized solutions to their growing needs. The company is excited to show the fruits of their partnership and how they use Jiffy products to better serve their customers.

Wagners Greenhouse & Garden Center
Wagners provides young starter plants to various greenhouses across the state, furnishing their two garden centers and serving landscapers in the Twin Cities area. They've been a customer of Jiffy Group for over twenty years.

Wagners also produces a series of highly specialized crops that require a long growth time: making them expensive to produce. As they expanded production in this area, they realized they needed a partner to help them minimize losses and thus maximize their profit margins on these more expensive crops.

Success with automation through Jiffy's European Seedling Mix
Wagners began using Jiffy's European Seedling Mix and were highly impressed with its ease of use, versatility, improved seed germination, and superior hold it provided their crops through the entire production process.

These factors enabled them to find increased success with both their automated and manual processes, including patching and transferring one plug to a bigger one as the plant grows.

Rather than the substrate dictating when and where to use automation, the question became when automation is helpful versus a manual approach. This, in turn, has enabled them to maximize their automation tools, incurring a greater return on their investment in equipment.

When using the European Seedling Mix, Wagners team found that the peat structure was superb compared to other mixes they had used in the past.

Due to its uniformity and consistency, it makes it easy for the plants to grow and be transplanted and for their customers to have a quality plug and end product.

Increasing Usable Plants with Custom Preforma Trays
Taking this a step further, Jiffy provided Wagners with custom Preforma tray options for them to work with to optimize the growth of their specialized crops and make the transfer more manageable while increasing usable plants.

What makes Preforma so successful is the overall quality of the product it produces. Preforma plugs consistently retain an air content of 30% or more, which means no compaction, even under heavy misting conditions. It takes plants less time to grow using Preforma, resulting in more uniformity within crops, more usable plants, and fewer losses.

The longstanding relationship between Jiffy and Wagners has allowed for a true partnership. The trust created resulted in a series of innovative solutions to help them meet their needs.

"Working with Jiffy has been very easy. Their customer service is always very helpful, their deliveries come on time, and it's just really good technical support as well," said Nik Wagner.

Malmborg's Garden Center & Greenhouse
Malmborg's is a year-round greenhouse that grows 1,100 varieties of plants and ships its product all over the country. In total, they produce approximately 5 million plugs every year. Jared Lucht is focused on maximizing efficiency and sustainability within the greenhouse.

With such a significant production demand, Malmborg needed a partner to help them increase consistency in their growing process and maximize the growth they can produce within their greenhouse space.

After being repeatedly impressed by their consistent success with Jiffy's products, they partnered with Jiffy to create specialized equipment that increased efficiency: maximizing profit and lowering the cost per square foot within their greenhouse. With limited growing space within the greenhouse, water efficiency is a top priority for the Malmborg team.

They've found that watering consistency with Jiffy Preforma enables their team to get the most out of their rainwater system. Jared has been impressed by how evenly Jiffy Preforma stays hydrated – It doesn't dry out at the bottom or the top: if it's dry, it's dry throughout.

This evenness makes it easy to dial in each plant's specific watering needs and avoid the guesswork accompanying more uneven watering of plugs.

Sustainability and Efficiency with Preforma Plugs
The use of Preforma results in crops demanding less water and nutrients, increasing overall efficiency and sustainability. The Preforma Plug's binding structure ensures no transplant is needed, making it an ideal solution for growers looking to ship or transplant plugs at an earlier stage, thus freeing up bench space for faster crop rotation.

Because of Jiffy's consistency as a substrate and the effect on water management for the production of millions and millions of plugs, Jared has been able to predict his plants' exact growth each year, enabling him to maximize his square footage. This predictability allows him to work with his regional manager and devise a plan to confidently meet the product needed for the following year's goals.

Jiffy's collaborative partnership with Malmborg's allows them to take advantage of all the creative solutions that Jiffy has to offer.

"There's one part I never have to think about, and that's whether or not Jiffy is going to work. I'm a lot less worried and a lot less stressed because I don't need to worry about one thing, and that's to find the thing for the next year that will make it better than it was the year before. A partnership is actually a pretty good word for it," said Jared Lucht.

The Strength of Jiffy's Partnerships
The key to success in Jiffy's client partnerships lies in the collaborative nature of the relationship between Jiffy's regional territory manager and the client's primary point of content. The Jiffy account managers are responsible for ensuring our clients have the products they need when they need them, and they also seek to build relationships with our clients to create innovative solutions to their growing needs.

As the Midwest regional account manager, Chris Wacker has been able to build upon the long-term relationships established with Wagners and Malmborg's.

With prior experience as a grower, Chris brings industry understanding to his ties with Jiffy's Midwest clients and is constantly seeking to provide customized solutions to help them succeed.

"What excites me most about working with my clients is the fact that I can come on-site, be here with them, walk the greenhouses together, and see not only the product that Jiffy provides but how their plants are growing. In our work, the most important thing is not just the building and growing, but the relationship between Jiffy and our customers," said Chris Wacker.