Lincolnshire pot-plant packer the Butters Group has re-invested around £700,000 in profits to expand its operations into growing and cut-flower packing as it plans to continue developing the business despite the tight economic climate.
The group, which counts M&S and Asda among its customers, has spent £400,000 developing a specialist cut-flower packhouse to produce bouquet lines for supermarkets and home deliveries. It has also invested a further £300,000 on re-furbishing and extending a neighbouring redundant flower nursery to create four acres of glass for raising bedding plants and potted bulbs.
“We have had a good couple of years, but in a difficult market there is not a lot of growth so we decided to expand into cut-flowers and production of our own,” said group chairman Jeff Hooper. “The reason for growing our own is that we can substitute some of the imports we bring in from the Netherlands and also to increase quality control in the chain.”
Butters already works with 35 Lincolnshire growers and its own new growing operation will complement their output. “They are the backbone of our business,” said Hooper.
The two developments have already created around 40 new jobs and there are already plans afoot to double the glasshouse to eight acres, which would create more employment.
Cyclamen is on stream from the refurbished Westside nursery and being packed at the new packhouse and Kalanchoë will also be grown there as well as bedding plants in the spring. Grower Pete Hicks heads up the growing operation having spent some 25 years with PA Moerman and Lucksbridge Horticulture.
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