Phil:
So I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast today, Hannah Powell from Perrywood Garden Centres, who's the HR and Communications Director. Hi there Hannah.

Hannah:
Hello. How are you?

Phil:
I'm very good. Thank you very much.

Kate:
Hello. Hello, Hannah.

Phil:
So, Hannah, maybe we could just kick off with a really simple one. Could you just give us a bit of an overview of Perrywood and a little insight into your role within the business?

Hannah:
Sure. So Perrywood began in 1955 with my grandparents. They bought a four-acre piece of land. It was very modest. There was a bungalow, a shed, some fields, and they grew strawberries and potatoes. A lot of weeds, apparently, as well. I think they had a couple of cows, and it was a very modest smallholding at the time.
And then my dad, Alan, left school at 16 and went to work for Colchester Parks Department. And when he went there, he realised that actually, growing plants in greenhouses, you've got much more control over the weather. And so he brought that back to Perrywood and encouraged his parents to buy a greenhouse. And that was the journey really, starting to work with plants.
And then my mum and dad took over in 1984. And really it was after that that the business really sort of took off. Big investment in sort of, I think 1999 they did the coffee shop, 2010, a big bespoke sort of shop, the shop that's still here at Perrywood Tiptree. And then myself and my two brothers grew up here, so very sort of immersed in the business, grew up talking about business around the kitchen table.
There was no office. So the kitchen table was where Dad counted cash, where he ordered his seeds, where we talked about what had gone well that day or what hadn't gone well. So it was sort of very normal to us to sort of grow up talking about the business. We all went off and did our own thing. We went off to university, had other careers, and then one by one we came back.
So Simon came back first, I think. And he is now retail director. And then I came back and as you said, I look after HR and communications, the career that I did while I was outside the business. And Simon and Tristan both did engineering. And then Tristan came back and Tristan is Operations Director. So that's sort of yeah, brings us up to where we are now.
That doesn't bring us up to date. That's sort of the family story, I suppose. But what we now have is three garden centres. So.

Phil:
Right. Big expansion.

Hannah:
Yeah. So the four-acre plot of land at Tiptree is now 22 acres, including Perry's Wood, which is where the name comes from, next door to the site. And that's our biggest centre.
Then we have Sudbury, which we bought in 2018 from Wyevale. Listeners will know we opened a brand new garden centre last October there, on the same site as the old garden centre and then our third one, Buckhatch, which we bought nearly two years ago from an independent business. So we're now a very small chain of three garden centres.

Kate:
So am I right in thinking that you have a nursery still at Perrywood? So are you able to supply plants to the garden centres, or is it something your dad looks after or is it commercially viable?

Hannah:
So Tristan, my younger brother, who's Operations Director, looks after the nursery production and is very much involved in the buying of all the seeds and the young plants and the sort of production of what we produce. And Dad is our sort of buyer, in a way, because he looks after plant areas and he's also got a lot of experience.
So he will walk through the greenhouse and say, "They're a bit thin here," or, "They look a bit dry," those sorts of things. So he's a really good, sort of expert on the team. But the nursery, so we have, I suppose, nursery areas at all three centres now. Tiptree is where we do the bulk of our production and we grow all our bedding plants, some perennials, some house plants, like cyclamen.
Yeah, and some herbs and vegetables and things.

Kate:
That's wonderful.

Hannah:
Buckhatch has a nursery; they started all our pot bedding and perennials this year and then Sudbury have some greenhouses, but they're mainly just sort of holding areas. They don't have any production facilities as such, but there's room over there that may change in the future.
So yeah, it's a really lovely part of the business. It again, it goes back to our heritage. For me, I walk through those greenhouses and I smell the smells that I've smelt since I was, you know, knee-high. And I love it. I absolutely love it. And I think customers really appreciate the quality of plants, the sort of low miles on them and the range that we do as well.

Kate:
Oh, that's fantastic. Oh, that's great to hear. Really great to hear.

Kate:
So let's just go back. You are an independent and a family-run garden centre. And unfortunately, as we know, many of these have stopped trading or have been bought out by the bigger groups. You've talked a lot about family, but what do you think is the secret to the fact that you are still trading and you're getting bigger and you're still family-run?
How have you done that when so many others haven't?

Hannah:
A bit of luck along the way.

Phil:
Million-dollar question.

Hannah:
Yeah. I mean, the fact that Simon, Tristan and I wanted to come back into the business.

Phil:
Yeah, that's a big thing, isn't it?

Hannah:
And with three of us, it makes it more possible to grow, because we've all got different skills that we've brought from our different careers, different ways of working.
We all look after our sort of distinct areas, and we're able to grow and get on with it. I suppose, you know, we've come back into the business at an age where we've got time and energy most of the time. So to do that. Whereas I guess if we hadn't come back into the business, mum and dad probably wouldn't have bought a second garden centre or a third.
They may have sold the business and had someone come along with a tempting offer. Well, you know, as you get older, that would have been hard to turn down. So I think part of it is sort of circumstance. And we're second... Well, Simon, Tristan and I are third generation, but really we're second generation because the business was so small when my grandparents had it.
Once you get that third, fourth, fifth, you get more people, cousins, it gets a bit more complicated. Whereas we're still siblings that grew up together and lived next to the garden centre. So we have a very close affinity with the garden centre in a way that my children, Simon's children, don't have because they're not living here. They haven't grown up with it.

Phil:
So do you think one day they might get involved?

Hannah:
Honestly, we're open-minded. They range in age from 17 to 6 months. So you know, who knows where their lives will take.

Phil:
Exactly. And as you said, you and your brothers, you all went off and did your own careers for a while.

Hannah:
So you know that I really would encourage that to any family-run business because I think you just get a different perspective.
And yes, there's nothing wrong with being in the same business all your life. Dad's done it, and he's not done badly for himself. But personally having left the business and come back, I'm really glad that I did that.

Kate:
Goodness, it's quite a, I hate to use the word, but I'm going to, journey for your family to go from, you know, strawberry fields and potatoes to now three large independent garden centres.

Hannah:
Definitely.

Kate:
But you must be doing something right as a family because you've picked up a host of awards from the Garden Centre Association, amongst many others.
So tell us a bit about those and how do you think you've kind of gone from this strawberry and potato patch to award-winning garden centre?

Hannah:
So I think the heart of our business is plants. And you'll see that in many of the awards we win. We've won awards for our plant areas, and that really is our heritage.
You know, dad started that sort of growing journey, or his parents did before him, and dad's still in the business, by the way. He's still doing the plant buying alongside a colleague. He still works very closely with the plant area. He still works very closely with the nursery team. So at the age of 75, he's not giving up yet.
He still absolutely loves it. Can't get rid of him.

Kate:
Exactly.

Hannah:
So there's a passion for plants. And then I think the other reason we do well as a business is that one of our values is to sort of be the best that we can be. So we're always looking at continuous improvement. And I think that comes from sitting around the table together and wanting to improve things.
So Mum and Dad very much looked at, right, what happened last season and how can we improve it for the next season. And now we look further ahead. We're looking one, two, three, five, ten years ahead. Whereas they were looking sort of year by year back in the day, when it was a lot smaller. And when it comes to winning awards, you have to make those sort of marginal gains, those small improvements, month on month, year on year to stay at the top and to be good at what you do.
So I think probably those two things. And the third thing, which I shouldn't forget, which is the most important, is a fantastic team. So I've talked about us as directors, but actually we have more than 350 team members now. We have one who's been with us for nearly 40 years. We have a lot who have been with us for more than five, ten years.
So there's a lot of knowledge and expertise in the team and really lovely people and it's a nice place to work. So I think those three things together probably sum up why we've been successful.

Kate:
I mean, that is a winning formula really for awards. Can I just ask, how tangible are those awards? I mean, you have the awards, but you've got three garden centres.
Do the awards help with business or is it more about kind of how you're seen within the industry?

Hannah:
It's a good question. It helps with lots of things. I think it's become part of our DNA in terms of the GCA standards, because the GCA has helped us as a business to understand what good looks like, what excellent looks like, and to want to be at that top end.
And our team just do that on a daily basis. Now, obviously in the inspection period, they step it up again. But that's also our key spring period, which is why the GCA has set it. And so it works for the customers as well. So, you know, as a customer, if you come to our garden centre, you don't want to see, you know, rubbish on the floor.
You don't want to see people standing around talking. You don't want to see products untidily displayed. You want to know where you're going. You want good signage. You want to be excited by visual merchandising. And that's what the GCA standards bring to the business: a way of scoring those things, and the team really understands the expectations on them, not only in the inspection period, but sort of all year round.

Kate:
I think it's so important for me as a gardener, just going to a garden centre and finding staff who actually know about gardening and know about the products they're selling. I think so many garden centres underestimate that, and I do deal with a complaints line for a large garden care company and the number of people who are given the wrong advice at a big garden centre.
So it's so good that you have a team that actually know what they're doing. It makes a difference.

Hannah:
We employ a lot of what we call plant area experts. So they're, you know, in the plant area teams, you go out there, they're the people that really know about certain plants and likewise in the other teams, you know, there are people that really know. They go on supplier visits, suppliers come to us and give us training.
We really embrace that, because if you really know your product, as you say, the customer is going to get a better experience, aren't they?

Kate:
Yeah.

Phil:
And you can upsell as well, which always helps.

Hannah:
Definitely.

Phil:
Absolutely. And interestingly, right at the beginning of the conversation, Hannah, you mentioned that you feel that the plants are central to everything that you do at the garden centre.
But how do you view the garden centre as a whole? I mean, is it just that plants are central or do you see it more as like a community hub or maybe a modern-day department store?

Hannah:
So I think when we, I suppose sort of ten, 15 years ago, we aspired to be like John Lewis. They were the real sort of pinnacle of retail.
And without being rude to John Lewis, I don't think they are anymore. They're still good at what they do, but it's not where I aspire to be. And I think for us, we always say we inspire people to get more plants in their lives. Like if that means having a really good plant area, but it also means having really good coffee shops and restaurants so that when they come and buy plants, they'll also be in an environment surrounded by plants and eating good food.
I think that's part of the experience that's going to increase dwell time and make them want to come back to us rather than somewhere else. And then in our departments, what is it that Simon says? He always says, you're never more than three steps away from the garden. So if you think about a botanical print or something that's related to the garden in some way, so even our giftware that you'll see when you come through, it feels like we're in a garden centre.
It hasn't lost its way, if you like. So plants go through everything if you like. Community hub is an interesting one. We don't do that many events just because we don't have a dedicated event space at any of the centres, but what I really love is what people get out of visiting us. So I've heard people say Perrywood is a mental health break for me.
If I'm feeling down, I come here and it cheers me up. I met a lady yesterday in a wheelchair. I just got chatting to them in the plant area and I asked, and he said, oh, she's just had a big operation. She needed to come out in the sunshine for the first time. I asked her where she wanted to go and she said, Perrywood.
And they were there for a couple of hours, you know, looking at plants. And she said, I love it here. I just can't get out of the wheelchair. Normally I'd be walking around and picking out plants, but that was the first place she wanted to go and we get community buses come here and email us afterwards: "Gosh, we had such a lovely time."
So I think for me, one of the lovely things about running these businesses is seeing the impact it has on people. Just by coming here and shopping, it puts spring in their step. It makes them smile and that's really important to us as a business as well. Obviously you hope they'll spend, but not all of them will and that's fine.
But I think if people enjoy an environment, they're more likely to come back and they're more likely to spend. So it does sort of work.

Phil:
Yeah. And word of mouth spreads as well, doesn't it?

Hannah:
Yes, exactly.

Phil:
Talking of that, so I think we're all quite aware in our industry that a lot of our customers are getting older. So how do you go about attracting the kind of younger, newer customers, and have you had any kind of revelations, and have you had any big disappointments trying to attract new customers?

Hannah:
Disappointments? I mean, I think one of the things that worked really well for us is our loyalty programme. So we had that for two and a half years. Now we've got 95,000 members, which is pretty good, pretty good for that space of time.

Phil:
Yeah.

Hannah:
It works really well. And the power of that is amazing. So a couple of weekends ago we decided to do 20% off in the whole garden centre, which I don't think we'd ever done before.
Simon came up with this idea.

Phil:
Oh, really?

Hannah:
But actually, it was just after England got knocked out of the World Cup. We were hoping that we might be able to celebrate them going through, but they'd gone out of the World Cup. We won all of these awards, so we thought we'd celebrate that instead. Things were a bit flat.
It had been really hot. It was a cooler weekend, sort of in between the heat.

Phil:
Right. Well, gives people a reason to come in.

Hannah:
We sent this email out and they all came in because we've got that many members. It's, you know, powerful. So that's really good. And that works for all age groups. You know, people like a bargain.
People like to feel like they're part of something in terms of young people. I think the catering is really important. I think having things that appeal to a wide range of people. So we have sort of classics that older people would go for. But we also have other dishes that maybe younger people would want to try.
We had Matcha May, so we had a cold drink and a hot drink with matcha in, you know, it's everywhere, isn't it?

Phil:
Yeah, absolutely.

Kate:
I can't stand it.

Hannah:
Yeah, but if you're going to appeal to those young people, you do need to do some of these things.

Phil:
Really?

Hannah:
Did you say, what have I had as a failure?

Kate:
Have you had something that you wanted to try that you thought would work? And it just hasn't?

Hannah:
I mean, if there hasn't been anything, great. Yeah. I can't think of anything major. I'll tell you what I would love to do. And I haven't cracked it yet, but we've got a plan for next year, so watch this space: new-build housing.
I think there's a huge opportunity to reach people in new builds and we haven't. We've tried to work with developers and not really done anything, but I've got an idea for that.

Phil:
Yeah. So yeah. Watch this space?

Hannah:
Yeah. I'm not quite there yet.

Phil:
I saw there was one of the garden centres, Monkton Elm had announced, fairly recently, that they'd got a partnership with local housebuilder on a new estate, and they were offering.
Oh, I think I mean, obviously this was being financed by the housebuilder, but I think it was something like a £2,000 garden makeover or garden starter kit sort of idea.

Hannah:
That's quite cool. Oh well, I'll go and knock on Mike's door then and ask him about that one.

Phil:
Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. There you go.

Hannah:
No, I think there's always more you can do.

Kate:
Yeah, it's finding the time isn't it?

Phil:
So a positive workplace environment seems absolutely key to Perrywood. What advice would you give to other garden centres that are having trouble retaining their staff?

Hannah:
I think if you focus on your team's needs and keeping them happy, then they will reward you in return and they'll become loyal team members.
So we put a lot of energy into supporting people through the ups and downs of life. Because life is complicated, right? You know, you have caring responsibilities, you have illnesses, you have bereavement, you have all sorts of things going on in people's lives. And when you've got 300-plus staff, there's everything going on all at once. If you know what I mean, because, you know, that's the nature of it.
So we do a lot of work around, you know, return to work interviews, occupational health referrals, a neurodiversity coach who comes in, all these different things. And I think what our staff like is that they're not a number. Like, we really care and we don't always get it right. Not every single person will be delighted with their job.
Like, you know, I mean, I'm not naive, but for the most part, people really enjoy working here. And they tell me things. At the summer party, we had 175 people, I think, come along, our biggest ever. And someone said to me, it feels really special working here. I feel like it's a really special company and I feel like I'm looked after and that you care about me.

Phil:
Oh that's brilliant.

Hannah:
And I don't see that lady very often, you know, six times a year. Maybe if I happen to be over there when she's there, you know, because I'm here at head office a lot on my computer. But she still feels that I, and we as directors, sort of care about her and her team.
You know, we sadly had a customer incident at Sudbury. Someone sadly died on site; they had health problems. But Simon and I got in the car and we drove over there to see if the team was all right. And I think things like that go a long way. And most business owners would do the same because you just want to, you know, make sure they're okay.

Phil:
Yeah, absolutely. No. But it says something about the business though, you know, when you say you and Simon jumped in the car and went over there to check on the staff and the situation, I think that that says a lot.

Hannah:
Yeah, that was on a Sunday. And Simon got on the phone to me and said, "I've just heard about this."
And we were like, right, let's go. Because it's, you know, it's not a nice thing to deal with. So. Yeah.

Phil:
So, Hannah, what would you say currently are the biggest challenges that you're facing as a business?

Hannah:
Biggest challenges? I think we've grown a lot over the last ten years and over the last year with the new garden centre at Sudbury, where the growth has been phenomenal. Buckhatch is sort of realising the fruits of our labours, if you like, you know, at the end of the second year of taking that over. So that's really beginning to grow sales.
So and with that you grow the team. So I suppose the challenge for us is making sure that our business is fit for purpose, and that the systems and processes sort of behind that work really well. And every time you expand, you have to sort of re-evaluate and make sure that that works. So in my HR team, for example, we've added an HR advisor role because the HR manager on her own can't look after 350-plus staff.
So, you know, each department is sort of looking at things like that. So that's always a challenge. The cost of payroll with it going up each year is a constant challenge. I don't think you'll find any business owner that doesn't mention that. I think just staying profitable is a challenge. And for us as a business, we've taken a bank loan out for the first time in our history to fund the new build of Sudbury.
So we're sort of in uncharted waters in terms of the fact that we're going to have to pay off the loan before we do anything else with the money. So that's new for us. That will be a challenge. And then I just think the external world at the moment is a challenge, isn't it? It's just, you know, it used to be that these things happened every few years.
Oh, that was a blip. And now it's like just constant, you know, we had Covid. Politics is really uncertain. People coming in making different legislation which, you know, when you've got uncertainty that's really difficult as a business, climate change, you know, the world burning around us. You know, they're all challenges that you have to take on.
You know, our team in the heat, you know, we've had more hot days than ever this year. And when you've got those continued sort of heat waves, the people that are in physical roles are, you know, doing the watering, chefs in kitchens, you know, that's really hard. You have to then look again, you know, is there anything different we need to do to help.
So yeah, lots of challenges come our way. But I think if you didn't want to solve challenges like that, then you probably wouldn't run a business because it's the nature of it. It feels a bit more fast and furious, the last sort of five, ten years than it used to be. But we've always had challenges thrown at us.
I mean, goodness, our industry has always been obsessed by the weather. Haven't we? Too cold. It's too hot. Is the spring too late? Is spring too early now? We're used to a little bit of uncertainty. So I just think it's just a bit more exaggerated these days.

Kate:
So talking of a challenge, I think one challenge that affects our industry quite a lot is sustainability.
And do you choose suppliers based on sustainability or is cost an issue? Where do you stand on that?

Hannah:
I mean, I don't do the buying, so I have to talk to the buying team here. They'll be saying, no, what are you talking about? But I think where there's a choice, then you will always go for the more sustainable option.
But obviously cost does come into it. We are a higher-end garden centre, so obviously we're looking for good value for our customers, but we're not necessarily looking for the cheapest product. So that makes it easier to find some of those sustainable products. And we've made some quite... well, I was going to say bold. Are they bold? You can judge.
But we've made some decisions in the last few years. So our garden shop, for example, we stopped selling glyphosate products. We stopped selling ready-to-use feeds. There were a few things that we stopped doing. You know, this year, following RSPB information about bird feeding, we've informed our customers that it's advised that you don't feed your birds very much between, I can't remember what it is, May and November.
Now, you might think, well, why would you do that when you're selling bird food? Actually, they've read it in the papers anyway. So by us saying we've seen it, we understand it, here's what you can do: you can give them fat balls; here are the cleaning things if you want them. It's then their choice. So we're still selling peanuts and seed, probably not very much, but we're still selling it and we're enabling them to make a choice.
And then in November when they can start feeding them again, we'll go hell for leather with a big campaign. It's time to feed the birds again and really push it.

Phil:
I think that's really interesting because that sets you apart and sets you up as being the experts, which I think is really, really good positioning, isn't it?

Hannah:
Yeah, because our customers want to trust us.
So if they read in the news that you shouldn't be feeding the birds and then they come in and we're doing loads of promotions on bird feed, it's sort of like, well, I'm really confused now because they're saying not to, but they're shoving me all this bird feed and that doesn't make sense. That's not how we want to run as a business.
And I completely understand others have other views and that's fine. But where you have to decide where you want to sort of set your stall out.

Kate:
No. Absolutely. So, Hannah, I'm just going to end my questions and ask you the most important one, which is do you actually enjoy gardening yourself?

Hannah:
I do love gardening. It is my therapy. I've had proper therapy in the past, which is great, but it's my maintenance therapy, sort of. If I don't go out in the garden, I'm not.
I'm not as nice. I need to be around nature. I seek it out. I need my hands in the soil. It's not very easy at the moment because it's so, so dry. I have a clay soil garden, so that's challenging. Baked hard in the summer, wet in the winter. So I've just been to Wales actually on holiday and all the plants are like three times the size of mine.
They just get more rain up there. Yeah. I do love gardening. Yeah. Very passionate about plants. I did a degree in horticulture.

Kate:
Oh. Did you?

Hannah:
Yeah, I did. I think I learned more at the garden centre, if I'm really honest. But yeah, I love plants.

Kate:
Fantastic.

Phil:
So, Hannah, what do you think are the biggest changes you predict that will impact the garden centre industry over the next five years?
You said you're doing the planning, so five to ten years, I think.

Hannah:
Yeah. You mentioned sort of ageing population. I think just the demographic in our areas is going to change. There's a lot more new housing going up. So I think there will be changes to our customer demographic. But that's an opportunity. Every time you have change, that's an opportunity.
So that excites me. I think the climate change one is interesting. If we get more periods of this heat, extreme cold, you know, wet weather, you know, that is going to change things. People are losing trees and shrubs in their gardens. Birch trees around here, you see them sort of dying off, you know, so we've got to move with that and make sure people have got things that they can grow that will be successful.
You know, bedding seems to still do really well. At one point I thought maybe bedding would go, but I guess if you've got a few pots, you can keep them watered. It's actually easier than remembering to water a shrub that has not been in the ground that long or something like that. So yeah, I would say those two are definitely on my mind.

Phil:
Great. Just want to say thanks so much for your time talking to us today. We really enjoyed the chat. It's been very insightful learning about the Perrywood business and yeah, wish you all the best for the future.

Hannah:
Thank you. You're really welcome.

Phil:
All right. Take care.