The expression ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ could not be more true of the fortunes of the garden products sector during the pandemic. While, unquestionably, much of the news has been grim during the last two years, business has boomed for those who find themselves operating in the ‘right’ sectors.
“There is no question that the garden products market has benefited from a nation in lockdown,” said Vicky Nuttall, director of the Garden Industry Manufacturers’ Association (GIMA).
“With most of us confined to our homes, we have looked to our outdoor spaces as a way to keep ourselves entertained and to improve our mental and physical wellbeing. The result of this has meant a buoyant market.”
However, as Ms Nuttall points out, this buoyancy has not been without its challenges.
“With increased demand comes significant pressure on the supply chain,” she said. “Raw material costs have increased significantly, and it’s well documented that timber costs are amongst some of the worst hit. Large scale national projects such as HS2 continue to impact core materials including timber and aggregates, which are being channelled into its own supply chain, leaving gaps in consumer stock availability. We anticipate that these pressures will continue for some time, and contingency plans will need to be put into place and product substitutions made available to minimise impact.
“On a positive note, we expect to see continued growth opportunities to coincide with the buoyant UK housing market, and the subsequent influx of DIY garden and landscaping projects.”
While restrictions have relaxed over recent months, businesses have still had to adjust to a different way of working.
At Jacksons Fencing, for example, office staff are working remotely where possible and around 150 employees are now based at home.
“We invested in a new phone system, which has helped tighten our processes while working outside the office,” said Peter Jackson, managing director. “In turn, this has also allowed us to provide a better service for our customers. Our manufacturing facilities are still operating in the increased space, which has now become more of a permanent measure to ensure social distancing is in place throughout.”
Zest 4 Leisure has also had to adapt to keep its teams safe and adds that the response to the changes from everyone in the business and from its suppliers to manage their way through the very challenging period had been “fantastic”.
“Staff absences [through Covid] have been relatively low, with many staff working remotely and through very rigorous protocols at our main warehousing and production site in Saltney,” said Simon Davison, head of commercial development.
David Twigg, director at Severn Valley Woodworks, whose Hutton brand manufactures and supplies garden products to merchants, garden centres and country stores, said that one of the biggest challenges during lockdowns and the consequent surge in demand had been the need to follow appropriate protocols in terms of social distancing to provide a safe working environment for staff.
“We operate with circa 90 people in our factories, of which 25 would be long-term agency labour. Now the availability of overseas labour is very much reduced,” said Mr Twigg, adding that this is as much a consequence of Brexit as of the pandemic.
The high demand witnessed in 2020 was repeated in 2021 and the traditional seasonal nature of the market was flattened out.
“It was high throughout the year for two reasons, I think,” said Mr Twigg. “One of which was that demand was so high in 2020 that no-one was able to fulfil all the orders they had for the traditional peak periods. Lead times that might once have been 10 days went out to 10 weeks and more. The season was elongated as a result.
“Also, while it didn’t affect us, there are many garden furniture resellers that import from South-east Asia, where the cost and availability of shipping containers was a real issue for them.”
Jacksons Fencing also experienced “a sharp increase” in customers continuing to spend money on their homes and gardens throughout the year, not just in the spring and summer.
“This exponential increase in demand for residential fencing solutions was also propelled by the continuation of multiple lockdowns, which meant many were unable to spend as much of their disposable income on outings or holidays for the second year running,” said Mr Jackson.
Power Sheds had such a busy 2020 that it had to disable the checkout on its website and turn its Amazon, Wayfair and eBay sales off in order to protect its B2B customers (TTJ March/April 2021). And while it ramped up production, it still had to control sales in 2021.
“In March 2021 we moved into much larger premises – a 48,000ft2 site that allowed us to significantly increase our manufacturing capacity and we hoped we wouldn’t have to slow down sales again,” said Jack Sutcliffe, director and co-founder.
“As expected, demand was high throughout 2021, but there was a significant challenge with timber availability and prices. There were points in the year that, even with dual timber suppliers (Bayram Timber and Arbor Forest Products], we physically couldn’t purchase anymore no matter how much we tried. And prices continued to rise.
“Therefore, we did have to slow sales down again. We could have taken every sale we possibly could and extended lead times to 16-20 weeks,” said Mr Sutcliffe. “However, our concern was that we didn’t want to sell a shed to then manufacture it 16 weeks later, by which time the timber price had increased so much that we would end up selling at a loss. We kept lead times to a maximum of six to eight weeks to avoid this.”
Power Sheds, which was set up in 2019, had a £1m turnover in year one and £5m by year two. It’s now on target to hit £14m in its third year and has £22m in its sights for year four.
“We are confident we will be the biggest shed manufacturer in the UK by year five,” said Mr Sutcliffe.
The company’s business model is to keep customisation to a minimum, but with many variations and configurations possible when it comes to window and door placement. This helps make it “stress-free” for the customer and also easier for the staff to learn how to manufacture the products.
This latter point is particularly important given that production is so labour intensive and that Power Sheds has recruited heavily.
“We recruited an additional 50 staff in March 2021 and are bringing in a further 50 by April this year,” said Mr Sutcliffe. “It’s important that we make everything as easy as possible, particularly when there are so many to train.”
Other manufacturers have found their product just as much in demand. Best sellers for Jacksons included its acoustic fencing, which continued to be very popular as the new stay-at-home population began to realise the impact noise had on their health and well-being.
“Venetian hit-and-miss fence panels and contemporary panels have also been hugely popular,” said Mr Jackson. “It’s also been great to see more hedgehog gravel boards being specified and installed. This is a cause we are really passionate about.”
Jacksons also launched a non-timber product last year – its first metal post for garden fencing, Mi-T. “It’s been exciting to see the uptake of this,” said Mr Jackson.
Zest 4 Leisure reports that products from its grow-your-own (GYO) range did particularly well in 2021.
“This has been one of the most noticeable changes in the last couple of seasons, with demand for these much higher,” said Mr Davison. “Developing more products to support this trend is very high on our agenda. We won awards at Glee last year for GYO products, including the tall vertical herb, which is a great space-saving solution for maximum planting in an upright planter.”
Demand for bigger ticket items such as arbours, arches and pavilions also shows no sign of slowing down, he said, highlighting the Knutsford pavilions, “which are ideal as centre pieces for outdoor entertaining”.
“New products such as the Burghley and Tenby arbours sold exceptionally well,” said Mr Davison. “These are part of our Easy Build range and designed using DFMA (design for manufacture and assembly) principles.”
Garden seating has been a best seller for Hutton, whose shed and decking ranges have also performed really strongly.
“In 2020 we saw an increase in the value of shed sales of 15% and in 2021 we saw further growth of just over 20% in value,” said Mr Twigg. “Some of that will be price inflation, but the number of units sold has certainly increased year-on-year. The demand for sheds last year was colossal, with some manufacturers quoting four and five month lead times.
“Decking sales have been spectacular,” he added. “Fifty-four per cent growth on pre-pandemic levels by volume. That is pretty stellar – and it’s been echoed across all our cladding ranges as well.
“We offer many different decking sizes and profiles and all have performed incredibly well. The demand from our stockists has been very significant.”
As for new products, Hutton ranges tend to evolve organically, so there won’t be anything radically different on offer this year.
Jacksons says it is always researching new ideas for products to keep up with trends, gaps in the market and demand, which are often highlighted by its customers.
“We have a number of exciting concepts in the pipeline and these will hopefully reach the market later this year,” said Mr Jackson.
Meanwhile, at Zest 4 Leisure the main focus over the last 12 months has been developing and improving existing products.
“However, we have still produced a number of new products for 2022, including our folding garden bar, small space cold frame and tall vertical herb stand, all of which we showcased at Glee,” said Mr Davison. “The order volumes for these products has been far higher than anything we have seen in previous years, which is hugely encouraging.”
He added that, while pressure treated timber continues to lie at the heart of the Zest 4 Leisure range, it has begun developing “an exciting new relationship with new factories who produce very high quality painted timber products and we will begin trialling these during 2022”.
As for new products for Power Sheds for 2022, it launched its range of log cabins in December 2021 and says that sales in January – usually a quiet time of the year – boded well for the future. Cabins are made in the company’s original 10,000ft2 factory, while the aforementioned new 48,000ft2 space is dedicated to making sheds and summerhouses.
When it comes to investments, Power Sheds has now started to automate part of its operation.
“We have worked with an automation developer and invested £250,000 in a new dipping system that dips the shed panels into treatment,” said Mr Sutcliffe. “We are aware of spray systems for shed panels but we prefer the coverage and consistency of a dipped panel.
“We have exclusivity on the machine and this is the start of a more automated manufacturing process, with other systems in the pipeline.”
And, as mentioned, the company has also invested in people, both existing members of staff and new recruits. It aims to have 120 employees by April and has plans for leadership training.
The new batch of “team members” will enable Power Sheds to boost its production from the current 600 sheds per week to 1,000 per week.
“The manufacturing capacity can then increase further with a second shift if required,” said Mr Sutcliffe. “However, it is more likely that we will open up additional manufacturing units elsewhere in the UK, which will significantly cut down our delivery costs. A lot of our sales are in the south of the UK and we are in the north.”
Meanwhile, Zest 4 Leisure is trialling a number of new packaging solutions and “exploring new machinery”.
“We are also increasing the number of products being received from our factories that are prepared so they can be packaged more quickly and efficiently by our home delivery team,” said Mr Davison.
In the last 12 months the company has seen growth in excess of 20% and it expects to see even larger growth this year. Part of this success is the home delivery capability.
“We see the development of a relationship between the brand and the consumer as key to future growth,” said Mr Davison. “Our ability to home deliver product is a huge help to our retail customers and to the end consumer.
“In 2022, for the first time, we are investing in promoting our products, style and values directly to consumers using traditional and online media, such as Your Home, Gardens Illustrated, Country Living and House Beautiful. We have rebranded as Zest with a key consumer message of loving life out doors and believe that garden centre and online retailers will really feel the benefit of this latest initiative.”
Mr Davison said he expects demand to continue this year and that Zest had increased capacity at its factories and sourced new suppliers in order to respond to this.
David Twigg agrees that demand will continue unabated in 2022.
“I think there are still many people who wanted to buy garden products last year but couldn’t [because of high prices and availability] and will look to buy them this year,” he said. “There is a feeling that with holidays back on people’s radar and the rising cost of living the result will be less money spent on garden products but the traditional demographics who make up a large percentage of consumers for our ranges will still be very wary of foreign travel and less affected by financial pressures.”
That is also the view at Power Sheds.
“I think 2022 will be a busy year in the shed industry,” said Jack Sutcliffe. “I appreciate one school of thought is that many people have bought sheds in the past couple of years, so demand may fall off and the market may correct itself.
“However, I also feel there are a lot of people who held off buying a shed until the prices came down, so I believe that with timber prices more stable, it will balance out. The industry will be busy.”
“We believe home and garden improvement will remain hugely popular,” said Peter Jackson. “Health and well-being is a recurring theme and becoming increasingly non-negotiable and this includes the ability to reduce noise levels in and around our homes – so we do believe we have another busy year ahead.
“Further to this, we predict an increase in the sale of landscape timbers as people become more interested in kitchen gardens and GYO produce.”