sh, onions, beets, mushrooms. If you can name it, G’s foresees its retail customers in the UK, Europe and North America of fresh vegetables. The organic share in this is becoming increasingly important. “We are continually working hard with our partnership growers to strengthen our product quality and range in delivering core lines over 52 weeks of the year,” Barry Standing, head of G’s Group Organics assures.
Collaborations
“Our growing and production facilities are located in the UK, Spain, Czech Republic, Poland, Senegal and the US. We also have strategic growing partners all over the world,” says Barry. Collaboration is in the company’s genes. Examples include the G’s Spanish growing operation, historically known as Pascual, from where G’s can supply it customers with fresh organic vegetables throughout the winter. In Senegal G’s has a large cultivation project of salad onions, through which it helps the local community. A joint venture with an American beet production factory also ensures a large volume of red processed beets and beet juice which supplies American consumers with healthy beet based products under the Love Beets brand.
Growth potential organic
The British organic turnover is rising in the UK by 4-5% annually. “Incomparable to Scandinavian countries and Germany, who show a double figure growth each year, but we see a lot of growth potential for organic product in the UK,” says Barry. “Partially due to the participation of TV cooks there is a lot of attention for organic vegetables. We do see that in the UK the consumption of organic vegetables is higher in more affluent demographical areas within the UK.
The so-called Millennial’s, born between 1980 and 2000, are also making increasingly healthy lifestyle choices and organic products fit in with this, and indications are that younger families are increasing their consumption too. G’s core business is in conventional products however they believe it is important that the consumer has the organic option and balance the range to suit these needs.
There is also an opportunity with a value added organic product which will also fit within the consumers life-styles and appeal to the shopper who are after more convenience. What we see is that the British growers are open to defining brands and want to communicate with consumers on the supplier and his growing methods.”
“The challenge is to supply a visually attractive product, as consumers buy with their eyes. And things like climate and weed control are more difficult in organic growing. We also wield the principle ‘less is more’, for packaging, certainly for the organic products,” says Barry. He sees the future optimistically. “What defines us is that we control the whole chain as a vertically integrated organisation from seed to shelf. We don’t trade, everything is programmed!”
For more information:
Barry Standing
G's
Tel: +44 1353 726738
barry.standing@gs-fresh.com