EFSA visits Copenhagen
After two years, members of EFSA were able to meet up again and go on an inspirational city trip together. This year the destination was Copenhagen, Denmark. Garden Connect has been a member of EFSA for five years and was, of course, present on this trip to Denmark.
“EFSA is a partnership of innovative suppliers to the garden industry. We share knowledge with other suppliers and partners within EFSA. There is a wide variety of suppliers within the group. After what has happened over the past 18 months, it was nice to get to see each other again”, says Nikkie van Dillen, who was present in Copenhagen together with Sjors Hemmen on behalf of Garden Connect.
Copenhagen
EFSA had put together an exciting program consisting of multiple visits to stores in and around Copenhagen. The Bering Flowers store was very nice to see, as was Arket, a luxury version of H&M. Combined with home & living and hospitality, this is a neat and distinctive store. Customers can sign up for the newsletter at the checkout to receive an immediate discount: an excellent way to collect more contact details. In addition, customers can drop old clothes to receive a discount. Arket then recycles these clothes.
H&M Home is located near Arket, which impressed many EFSA members since this H&M store is wholly focused on home and living and not on clothes.
Garden centres
Of course, the group also visited garden centres like Plantorama. Smiemans, partner of Garden Connect and member of EFSA, continues to build for Plantorama. Therefore, the new Plantorama Hørsholm was visited. A beautiful, well-kept store that is spot-on.
“We visited two Plantorama stores. The difference between the old and new store was huge. You can see that they have learned a lot, and they applied this successfully in the new store.
Tradeshows
The EFSA members expect to work together again at the 2022 tradeshows in Germany: “We have waited to go to Spoga-Gafa for two years as we want to showcase ourselves at the largest fair in Europe for garden centres. Unfortunately, these plans have not yet succeeded. Together with EFSA, we hope that we will be able to go to Spoga-Gafa again in June 2022”.
