Patrick Bastow is to return as managing director of Lincolnshire herb grower Swedeponic UK.

Bastow, who for six years has been md of garden plants specialist Yoder Toddington, is returning to Swedeponic, which he helped set up in 1998 and ran for four years, on October 1.

Since Bastow left in 2002, Swedeponic has quadrupled its direct supply business with supermarkets and doubled turnover to around £6 million. “There is now a big challenge ahead to take the company forward,” he said.

During his six years at Yoder Toddington, Bastow has successfully switched the firm’s focus from a fast-declining chrysanthemum cutting market to that of container plants.

He will be replaced at Yoder Toddington at the end of September by Andy Desmond, who Bastow credits with being “one of the key reasons for the success of the container plants operation over the past five years”.

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