Plant Producer Award and Life Beyond Peat Award
All entrants/nominators to the ‘Plant Producer’ and ‘Life Beyond Peat’ categories:
- Must be an HTA Sustainability Roadmap supporter ie either commit to publishing a sustainability plan in the next year, or already have one in place. The plan should cover at least three of the following goals: CO2 reduction; peat removal; water resilience; IPM and chemical reduction; packaging and waste reduction; social/community engagement.
- Must have completed the Plant Healthy self-assessment and scored a minimum of 50% (this can be done at www.planthealthy.org.uk), or already be Plant Healthy or OHAS certified
- When a grower has been nominated, they will then be asked to provide a brief comment as to why they feel they should win, plus photographic & video evidence (if not already supplied.)
What do we need?
Please provide 300-800 (as a guide) words outlining why you consider that your business/the grower deserves recognition.
The judges will be looking at a wide range of criteria, so to make the entry as good as possible, you should include information on the following three areas:
- The company’s business strategy and vision
- The company’s approach to quality management
- The company’s approach to environmental, social and biosecurity responsibilities.
To help you provide information that the judges would find useful within the above three broad assessment criteria, we’ve provided the following questions for you to consider.
Please note: it is NOT necessary for a business to provide information on all these questions, these are just suggestions to help you focus your nomination
1. Questions to consider on business strategy & vision
- What stands out about the grower’s service level, speed and efficiency of order processing/turnaround?
- How does the grower add value through its sales and marketing channels or promotional activities? How has the company responded to changing customer demands, or delivered sales growth in the last 12 months?
- Is the company leading or outstanding with respect to its product/range selection? e.g new varieties, disease-resistant varieties, assortment concepts, out-of-season supplies, or specialist production
- What is notable about the grower’s approach to Human Resources (HR)? What could you say about the company’s approach towards personnel management and development opportunities for its workforce and average length of employment (if known).
2. Questions to consider on quality management:
- Within the last 12 months what significant developments or improvements in productivity have there been?
- What innovations in production techniques (eg cultivation methods, adoption of automation, mechanisation, expansion of range) has the grower introduced or improved?
- What skills development or evidence of work to develop a culture of continual improvement has been undertaken in the last 12 months?
- What improvements or innovations in quality management have been introduced or developed in the business?
- What approached to capturing and acting on customer feedback are being used to support improvement by the grower?
3. Questions to consider on environmental, social or biosecurity responsibilities:
- What approaches to reducing pesticide use and/or use of alternative measures has there been?
- What steps to reduce packaging or increased use of sustainable packaging have there been?
- How is the grower approaching reducing its use of peat and/or increased use of alternatives
- How the company conveys its sustainability claims to its customers and stakeholders
- What certifications has the grower achieved eg Plant Healthy, OHAS, ISO, IIP, other
If you are self-nominating, we welcome any supporting photographic, video or other evidence to support any applications as this will give the judges a clearer idea of what is being achieved.
Grower Of The Year Entry Form
Please fill out all the relevant information to successful nominate or enter into the Grower Of The Year Awards 2024.
Should you require any assistance or have any queries a member of our events team will be more than happy to assist you, please contact them using the email address below