The HTA are doing great work at the moment bringing the previously disparate parts of our industry together, writes GTN’s managing director, Trevor Pfeiffer. And the results of all the collaborative work were on display at last month’s HTA Garden Futures Conference.

A well-attended conference and dinner the previous evening heard about training initiatives, marketing drives, future trends research analysis, ideas from other retailers – and there wasn’t a banker or economist in sight…  

It was clear that potentially the first industry beneficiaries of all this collaboration should be garden retailers. But where were they? When it came to the main event, many of the retailers who attended the dinner the evening before were not present so only a couple of handfuls of really interested retailers became enlightened to all the activity they can take advantage of to help their businesses in the future.

For many years, retailers have bemoaned the HTA for “not doing anything to help them.” That is not the case now. 

By bringing the industry together, the power of collaboration and co-operation will help all of our businesses grow and retailers need to be at the forefront of that. Opportunities will be lost for years ahead if new customers are attracted to garden centres and nurseries that just don’t cater for their changing needs.

If you didn’t make it to the conference, we hope our highlights give you a flavour and get you accessing the HTA (the-hta.org.uk) to find out more.

For full coverage of the HTA Futures Conference see the November issue of Garden Tade News.