Danish Trolleys
As the weather warms up and the sun comes out, we all want gardeners to be out shopping for plants in their droves. There are over 200 million visits to garden centres a year, and as we know a big proportion of this is squeezed into the March-June season. That puts huge pressure on the vital logistics and infrastructure that services this demand. A key risk is that if there aren’t enough Danish trolleys moving freely back and forth through the supply chain, or if haulage capacity is over-subscribed, we risk plant shortages in retail. HTA and GCA have worked together to develop some simple steps we can all take together to help keep plants keep moving through the supply chain.
Click below to find out more information:
Garden Centres
- Please make sure any of your Container Centralen (CC) trolleys are correctly tagged with the yellow CCtag6 tags so they’ll be moved through the supply chain. CC has information on how to do this on their website
- Please make every effort to return empty Danish trolleys you have as soon as possible so they can make their way back to growers. We know it’s tempting, but please avoid using trolleys as extra display units in store, or as convenient storage space , if doing so is at the expense of keeping pace with your exchanges with your suppliers. Without enough trolleys, growers can’t move plants through their nurseries to despatch areas, nor put loads onto lorries. That can lead to losses and stress for growers, as well as plant shortages or delays for retailers.
- Feedback from hauliers is that 70-80% of plant shipments in peak weeks during the season are in transit on Thursdays and Fridays – a huge strain on capacity. If you reasonably can, ordering plants a few days earlier when the weather is forecast to be good (for instance on Thursday/Friday for stock to arrive Monday to Wednesday) can help make sure you get the stock you want, and ease pressure on logistics in general. Clearly, you’ll need to take account of your sales history in doing this, and movement of any occasions like Easter and bank holidays.
- If you’re part of the CC pool, make sure you have enough CC trolleys and shelving on hire with CC to cover the volume of exchanges you’re handling. If you’re not part of the CC pool, consider the costs and benefits of joining – there are no minimum buy-in levels to the pool preventing you joining if its right in principle for you and your suppliers.
- If you can agree that it may be mutually beneficial for you and your supplier, consider discussing whether accepting out-of-hours deliveries is something you could work with during busy weeks. That won’t necessarily be do-able for all retailers, but where some retailers can agree this it all helps to keep hauliers moving.
Growers
- Like retailers, please make sure any of your CC trolleys are correctly tagged with the yellow CCtag6 tags. CC has information on how to do this on their web site
- For any non-CC trolleys you have, please make sure these are only used for internal operations, or for exchanges with retailers (e.g. Supermarkets) who operate their own equipment infrastructure outside the CC pool. If non-CC trolleys are used to ship plants to garden centres in the CC pool, there’s a risk of them being ‘stranded’ at the garden centre as without the right tags a haulier may refuse to take them back. In the long run, that puts more pressure on the system for everyone.
- Where possible and appropriate (you’re naturally the best judge of your commercial relationships), don’t be afraid to suggest or request that retailers place orders earlier with you in advance of forecast sunny weekends.
Hauliers
- Please be proactive with your customers in advance of any forecast sunny weekends- don’t be afraid to contact them to ask about any likely increased need for deliveries. In advance of sunny weekends, growers and retailers will be all-hands-to-the-pumps getting ready for peaks and demand; they may well welcome a nudge from you if it’s going to help you to help them move plants to where they need to be.
- If you’re part of the CC pool, make sure you have enough CC trolleys and shelving on hire with CC to cover the volume of exchanges you’re handling. If you’re not part of the CC pool, consider the costs and benefits of joining – there are no minimum buy-in levels to the pool preventing you joining if its right in principle for you and your suppliers
Weather information and planning
So much of our industry relies on the weather, which of course can be unpredictable. That said, there are several weather web sites which provide 10-14 day forecasts. We recommend reviewing two or more of these in the context of your sales history and movements in key dates such as Easter to get an idea for forecast weekend weather to help anticipate peaks in demand and inform conversations around forward orders and shipments:
weather.metoffice.gov.uk/forecast/uk