President and chief operating officer Barry Sanders is the latest victim of an on-going ‘slimming down’ process at the Scotts Miracle-Gro company’s US parent.

Sanders, who has been with the business for 15 years,  is to leave the company at the end of January and will not be replaced.

Jim Hagedorn, chairman and CEO, promised shareholders in 2012 that the company would focus on enhancing profitability. “We continue to deliver on this guarantee,”  he said. “The decisions we have made over the past year have often been tricky, but none a lot more challenging than this one.”

Senior management has been reduced by 25%, with the equivalent of eight jobs lost, in Hagedorn’s drive to make the business “leaner and smarter. Chief financial officer Larry Hilsheimer left the company last spring.