Upgrades to restaurants and toilet facilities have been earmarked for major investment by the Notcutts Group, CEO Andy King revealed this week.

He said catering had played a massive role in pulling back lost plant sales revenue this summer. “While we can’t say we weatherproofed the business, we took steps to improve all our indoor ranges and that has worked extremely well for us,” he said. “Catering performs better when the weather is poor. When the sun is shining, people tend to run in, buy their plants and go home. But they spend more time in the restaurant when it rains.”

King also revealed that Notcutts, who acquired five garden centres from the North West Farmers group four years ago, are targeting the acquisition of 10 independent garden centres over the next three years. “We would run them as Notcutts centres but retain their local identity and offer owners continued involvment if they wanted,” he said. “Selling a family business is a big decision but this offers anyone who might have been eyeing retirement but is not quite sure about it an alternative way forward.”

He said the sucessful integration of the NWF centres had given the group the confidence to expand further. “We still have most of the staff and three of the managers,” he said. “We’ve kept their local identity of the centres but brand them as ‘part of the Notcutts family’.

Read the full Andy King interview in the November issue of Garden Trade News, available from 5 November.