GLAS Special: An insight into Bord Bia’s services for the Horticulture Industry
Print18 July 2024
Bord Bia has been active in supporting the amenity horticulture sector through various programmes such as consumer & trade promotion, business development, market research, and quality initiatives. Here’s a report on key activities from the past year and an overview of services available to the industry.
Garden Market Report 2023
Ipsos B&A has tracked consumer activity and spending in the gardening market since 2001. The survey aims to provide Bord Bia with a tool to measure and track consumer spend, purchase channels, and purchase motivations.
The biennial study was conducted in 2020 during the onset of COVID-19 and repeated in 2021 to monitor the pandemic’s impact. It recorded exceptional growth in the gardening market, surpassing the previous highs of the Celtic Tiger years.
Habits have largely returned to pre-Covid times, stabilising with an overall value of €966 million, down 35% from the €1.5 billion peak in 2021. Despite high inflation in 2023, the market has grown 21% since 2018, indicating that Bord Bia’s focus on outdoor spaces during Covid has left a lasting impact on attitudes towards gardening.
All categories showed increased spending compared to 2018, with the most notable increase seen in landscaping services, which gained popularity since Covid.
In the outdoor and flowering plants category, significant long-term growth is evident for bulbs, flower seeds, herbs, fruits, and vegetables.
Indoor potted plants, although spending has decreased from the peak levels during Covid, have maintained strong demand, with a 17% increase in spending since 2018.
There has been a notable change in purchasing motivations, with 30% opting to buy for special occasions, gifts, or other purposes rather than solely for home use. This shift aligns with the evolving spending patterns within the past decade, moving away from being primarily favoured by older females to now appealing to a diverse demographic range.
In contrast, while spending on fresh cut flowers is ahead of 2018 levels, purchasing occasions are down. At the height of Covid, cut flowers were a rare source of pleasure. Perhaps in an era of high inflation and cost of living pressures, choosing to spend on such a discretionary item is less attractive. The sustained popularity of indoor potted plants is no doubt considered a real and potentially better value proposition.
During Covid, investment in garden products more than doubled as consumers redirected their attention and income towards their outdoor spaces. This trend, driven by the “homebody” movement for remote work, relaxation, and cultivation, saw significant expenditures on these items. While some of these expenses are not expected to recur regularly, the market has still grown by 17% since 2018. Although spending on one-time purchases like paving, decking, and structures has declined, there has been increased investment in garden furniture and tools/equipment to offset these decreases.
Online purchasing became crucial for various gardening products during Covid. This trend continues, with 9% of market spend now online, compared to 3% prior to 2020. However, online shopping’s appeal varies across categories; it remains strong for garden products and trees but has declined for items like bulbs, flower seeds, and herbs. Traditional channels have rebounded in other areas; for instance, florist shops have regained market share in cut flower sales, reducing online bouquet sales.
Bord Bia was Bloomin’
Bord Bia Bloom attracted more than 100,000 visitors to Dublin’s Phoenix Park throughout the June Bank Holiday weekend. Event organisers reported that business was thriving, and spirits were high all weekend long in part due to the sunshine, which made a welcome appearance and remained constant throughout.
The family friendly garden by Maeve O’Neill
Visitors were spending their money at Bloom and many exhibitors reported strong sales and a need to restock throughout the weekend.
Joe Cowley, project coordinator, Harp Renewables, said: “Our Harp Bio-digesters include a range of aerobic food waste digesters for domestic use. Our products really resonated with the festival attendees and this year’s show has been a massive success for us. We have generated huge sales, in fact we completely sold out on day one and day two! We will be back next year!”
Boyne Garden Centre & Nursery from Slane in Co. Meath were exhibiting in the outdoor Nursery Village and won Gold Best in Show for their display.
Aileen Muldoon Byrne, owner, Boyne Garden Centre & Nursery, said: “We are so proud of our award! Winning at Bloom provides a boost to our company morale, and to our mail order service. The feedback we received from attendees over the last five days has been positive, not just for our display but across the festival. We can’t wait to come back!”
Bloom 2024 in numbers
Bord Bia has released some of the event facts and figures from the five day festival:
- This year’s show featured 22 show and feature gardens, 13 postcard gardens, 18 nursery displays, and more than 100 food and drink producers
- The prestigious judging panel consisted of 13 Irish and international horticultural experts, and awards were handed out to show garden designers, amateur postcard garden designers; plant nurseries and floral artists
- The plant creche onsite looked after 3,870 plants in total
- An estimated 4,250 ice cream cones were enjoyed by Bloom visitors
- 30% of visitors arrived via public transport or on foot
- 5,000 plants potted were by children and 900 sunflower seeds given to children attending
- 250 retail and foodservice buyers met with 100 plus Irish food and drink companies at the Bord Bia trade breakfast
- More than 1,800 people worked onsite each of the five days, including 100 Bord Bia staff volunteers and 130 volunteers
- It took 14 days to clear the Bord Bia Bloom site
Award winners
The final day of the festival marked the announcement of a number of awards, including:
- The People’s Choice Award, where visitors to the festival vote for their favourite show garden, was awarded to Tusla Fostering Garden – ‘Together We Grow’ designed by Robert Moore
- The Bloom 2024 garden designers selected the Designer’s Choice Award, and this year the accolade was presented to Nicola Haines for her ‘Coming Home to Nature’ garden for Fingal County Council, which was also awarded the best large garden at Bord Bia Bloom 2024
Bord Bia presented two food awards this year for the first time:
- The Visitor’s Choice Food Award gathered votes from visitors for their favourite food truck and the Eathos food truck, which has three restaurants in Dublin City Centre, was selected as this year’s winner
- The Best Dressed Award went to the Co. Westmeath based Killua Farm food truck, for their creative Bloom-inspired floral display
Abbi Fay, aged 10, from Slane admires the flowers in the ‘Coming Home To Nature’ show garden
Dates for 2025
Bord Bia has confirmed that Bloom 2025 will take place from Thursday, 29 May to Monday 2 June next year.
Jim O’Toole, chief executive, Bord Bia, said: “We work hard every year to plan and deliver an event that appeals to our diverse and broadening visitor demographic and the success of this year’s event demonstrates that after eighteen years, Bloom remains popular and relevant among the Irish people.
“We collaborate with over 100 Irish food and drink producers, as well as Ireland’s top garden designers, nurseries, and horticulture companies, all of which are showcasing their goods and services to the 100,000+ festival attendees. Exhibitors have an opportunity to engage with consumers, introduce their businesses, products and new services, which results in order books being filled for the upcoming year. As event organisers, we are delighted to see how Bloom has established itself as a must-attend summer event for both businesses and consumers.”
Easy Steps to Dream Gardens at Bord Bia Bloom 2024
Bord Bia showcased one of the seven Dream Gardens, from the Easy Steps to Dream Gardens suite at Bord Bia Bloom during the recent June Bank Holiday weekend. The Family-Friendly Garden by landscape architect Maeve O’Neill, was designed to grow with your children. “But the space must work for the parents as well as the kids,” pointed out Maeve, “and it needs to adapt as the children grow up.”
The design for this split-level garden featured three distinct zones: a patio with a vibrant raised bed encased in corten steel; a lawn with a solid wall where the children played ball; and a relaxed seating area at the back of the garden. There was a green-roofed playhouse with a sandpit and a studio room which could be used for an office or storage, or converted into a den when the kids are older. A pergola added privacy, creating an intimate space to enjoy the morning sun.
Maeve O’Neill’s ‘Family Friendly Garden’
The planting throughout the garden was designed to encourage pollinators and wildlife. Low maintenance and low toxicity.
Maeve discovered how useful a wall was during lockdown when her kids spent many hours knocking a ball against a wall near their home. “You can get so much variety of play out of a solid wall. Planting grasses, or creeping plants such as Soleirolia soleirolii (mind-your-own-business) along the base will survive being repeatedly hit and trodden on.”
The planting list for the garden had been carefully selected to ensure that the colour palette, height, and texture worked together. “For instance,” said Maeve, “the green and purple tones of the grasses and alliums in the foreground work with the yellows and whites of the climbers around the pergola. Being selective like this helps to create a more cohesive design for your garden.”
The grasses – including the golden wheatgrass, Stipa gigantea ‘Gold Fontaene’, and the Japanese grass, Hakonechloa macra, with its lush green foliage – provided texture, movement, and sound, adding to the sensory experience.
The popular Allium ‘Purple Sensation’ adds architectural structure with its purple pom pom heads in summer. The seed heads that follow add year-round interest. Achillea ‘Salmon Beauty’ add a splash of bronzed orange, reflecting the colours of the Liquidambar (Persian ironwood) tree behind, while a flash of blue to reflect the alliums is provided by the beautiful Phlox ‘Emerald Cushion Blue’ and purple from Salvia nemorosa ‘Caradonna’.
Home Grown Series 2
This series two of Home Grown, the TV series for RTE, concluded on Wednesday 27 March, completing seven half-hour programmes in which presenters Kitty Scully and Colm O’Driscoll met some of Ireland’s leading horticultural producers, and celebrated Ireland’s horticultural sector.
The presenters explored the full range of horticulture, visiting both large- and small-scale growers, inspirational gardens and service providers across the supply chain, and featuring other items of horticultural interest.
In all, 42 horticultural enterprises were visited, showcasing the broad range of disciplines, from fresh produce growers, ornamental growers, large and small enterprises, golf courses to large estate gardens and smaller specialist gardens.
Pictured: Colm O’Driscoll and Kitty Scully
Series two explored many varied facets of horticulture, including:
Preparations for the Ryder Cup in 2027 at Adare Manor, Co Limerick; the journey of a plant from seed to finished product for garden centre sale; and the importance of attracting a younger generation into horticulture with a focus on education, young garden designers and young growers; the investment in time and care it takes to grow trees at a tree nursery; how social media is influencing a whole new generation of gardeners; the challenges of growing salad leaves outdoors in the field; how one producer in North County Dublin pivoted to growing chillies and garlic to save their business; and how a mushroom grower impacted by Brexit diversified from growing regular mushrooms to exotic mushrooms in order to stay in business.
The series garnered more than one and a half million viewers for the live programmes, which are now available on the RTE Player. The objective for Bord Bia in sponsoring the series was to raise the profile of horticulture, and feedback from the industry has been hugely positive.
Home Grown series one also achieved excellent viewing figures of circa two million live viewers, and has been repeated on RTE three times since the original broadcast. Consumer and industry feedback from surveys carried out following series one was overwhelmingly positive. Catch up on the RTE Player if you missed it.
Bord Bia is delighted to announce that Home Grown Series three is now in production and will be broadcast in Spring 2025.
‘My Bord Bia’ client portal
Bord Bia has recently launched their new client portal, ‘My Bord Bia’. This is an important online resource for your business, providing one central point of access to all of Bord Bia’s support and services.
Available exclusively to Bord Bia clients, the portal will allow you to:
- Access the latest consumer and market insights into various markets
- Request information from Bord Bia’s world-class library
- Learn about, and apply for, Bord Bia grants
- Ensure that Bord Bia has the latest information on your company
The portal will continue to be an important asset for all Bord Bia clients as additional features will be added.
Contact Carol Marks or Michal Slawski (Export Development) via email on: Carol.marks@bordbia.ie or Michal.slawski@bordbia.ie. For access to reports and studies contact our Library and Information on: info@bordbia.ie
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