The Home Grown labelling scheme, which promotes ornamental plants grown on British nurseries, was relaunched by the British Protected Ornamentals Association (BPOA) in February 2011.
The idea for the scheme originally came from NFU member nurserymen Maurice May and Bill Godfrey, supported by their local NFU branch, who wanted to tap into consumer interest in local produce. Home Grown received pump-priming funding from the South East England Development Agency, then HDC supported its development into a label that growers could use in their marketing.
Growers can find out more about Home grown and how to access the logos by clicking here or by clicking on the 'For the industry tab' on the left hand side of this page.
The public can find out more about Home grown by clicking here or by clicking on the 'For the public' tab on the left hand side of this page.
The Home Grown scheme is free for BPOA members to use, non-members using the scheme will be asked to pay a £100 annual registration fee.
“The BPOA wants to develop the scheme to enhance the appeal of Home Grown to consumers in garden centres and encourage greater uptake by the multiples,” said BPOA chairman, Sarah Fairhurst. “Although BPOA membership is mainly in pot and bedding plants we are happy to see it used across all of the UK ornamentals industry.
Drawing on the marketing expertise and of the committee and of Maurice May and Bill Godfrey, the logo was ‘Britished-up’ to enhance its appeal. The criteria for Home Grown were also reviewed and a process has been developed to ensure compliance by users of the logo. Scheme membership has been made cost effective, to help widen the appeal of Home Grown. Finally, a marketing strategy was developed that aims to make Home Grown the leading scheme to distinguish British-grown ornamentals, with a logo recognised throughout the industry by growers, retailers and consumers.
In summer 2011, the Home Grown logo was successfully registered as a trade mark. The registered trade mark is a great step forward for Home Grown and will serve to further protect, differentiate and add-value to the scheme.
The BPOA actively encourages its membership to become ambassadors for Home Grown, and urges the ornamentals sector to get behind one logo to distinguish British-grown plants.
- Morris May - 27/03/2012
In reply to Paul Cooling. It is the flexibility of the Home Grown logo that overcomes this 'problem'. As an user you are free to add, below the logo, 'At this Garden Centre', 'By Coolings of Kent', 'In the Garden Of England', 'On a UK Nursery', 'In Kent'. One problem with 'Locally Grown', is that for a large nursery, such as yours, when do one of your customers not become local (Trading Standards dismissed the use of local when they were consulted). The aim of the scheme is not to promote UK plants over imported, but to allow the customer to identify those that are. When a customer is at a wholesale nursery or garden centre, the scheme is there to reassure them that the vendor has chosen the best quality plants, of which some (and with luck all) have been home grown. The hope is to strengthen the industry and put it on the map and help differentiaite it from imported plants. No one is objecting to imported plants, particularly, as growers, we choose seeds and often young plant material, that is produced overseas. Whereas up to now we have seen an array of emblems and phrases, they do not stand behind one message or set of values. Home Grown is designed to address that problem and unify the UK industry behind one easily identifable campaign. Look out for Homegrownplants.org.uk that is being launched at the end of March.
I hope we might start to see 'Home Grown by Coolings of Kent' sometime soon ;)
- Paul Cooling - 20/02/2012
Having just read the article regarding the logo in last week's Hort. Week I have to say I am surprised at the use of the words Home Grown when clearly many plants are sold from retailers with no growing facilities. Surely Locally Grown or UK Grown would be more accurate yet just as successful in getting the message accross. At Coolings in Kent we sell over a million plants a year that are Home Grown, a similar number that are Locally Grown and yet more that are UK Grown. I realise that the aim of the scheme is to promote UK plants over those from abroad but there is a difference!