Farplants Sales Ltd was formed in 1972 as a co-operative to collectively market and distribute high quality container-grown nursery plants. The organisation now has 6 members, including Star Plants, all growing plants within a 10-15 mile radius. Each member grows their own specialities. The group also has other growers who produce plants on contract, to ensure that Farplants has a complete range to sell to garden centres, including shrubs, climbers, conifers, herbaceous plants and herbs.

Sales

In 1972/73 Farplants sold £30,000 of plants. In 1996/97 it sold £8m worth. It now employs over 30 people, mainly at its headquarters in Littlehampton in West Sussex. The following statistics show what a large organisation it has become:

• On a busy Monday morning its sales staff will talk to over 200 garden centre customers
• On one day it can deliver over 700 trolleys full of plants, on over 30 lorries, to more than 150 garden centres
• Each year it supplies nearly 5 million plant labels and display boards to its customers
• Customers can choose from thousands of plant varieties in Farplants' annual catalogue

Distribution system

For customers of Farplants the system works in the following way:

• Each nursery member informs Farplants when it has stock ready for sale. This is added to the available stock record on the computer system
• Customers telephone Farplants and from the computer records the sales staff can tell them exactly what is available
• Customers place an order
• Farplants remove the plants ordered from the available stock record
• Farplants send the information about the plants needed to each of the nurseries that will be supplying them. This is done through a computer link.
• Each nursery collects together the plants that have been ordered, washes the pots, tops them up with fresh compost and labels them.
• The plants are sent by lorry to the Farplants centre at Littlehampton
• Farplants assembles all the plants from the various nurseries and sends them by lorry to the garden centre that has ordered them.