City: Pistoia

Continent Country City City

Pistoia, the Italian Capital of Culture

2017 was an important year for Pistoia. The European Capital of the Nursery Stock industry also became the Italian Capital of Culture. The town’s tourist season flourished and was alive with art, music, theater, seminars, etc. It was the perfect occasion for a special edition of the ‘Styling the Landscape’ event.

Pistoia, in the heart of Tuscany and due west of Florence, has 90,000 inhabitants and the nursery stock industry is one of its most important economic assets. It is the foremost producer in Europe, with some gigantic enterprises producing and trading the widest possible assortment, from subshrubs to big trees. However, the economic crisis has also had a major impact on the Pistoia nurseries: the ‘big’ and the ‘huge’ ones survived quite well, exporting their products all over Europe and to emerging Middle East countries, Turkey, and former Soviet Union republics. The small ones have had to reduce their workforce, often only relying on family members, selling their products to the biggest producers resulting in much thinner margins. Those more affected were the medium-big enterprises, for which the Italian market was still important and those that made huge investments at the wrong moment. Therefore, in the last three years there have been huge takeovers that have deeply changed the ‘landscape’ of the industry.

NURSERIES Tree and shrub production in the area encompasses more than 5,000 ha with 1,200 enterprises and approximately 5,500 working units. The first nurseries were founded in the 19th century in an ideal location in terms of climatic conditions that enable growing both hardy and Mediterranean plants, protection from the strongest winds, fertile soil and abundant availability of water. The major transformation at the end of the 20th century was the increased use of container cultivation which enables the sale of plants all year-long.

QUALITY The quality standards in Pistoia are very high and clients are happy to find excellent products in quantities they need, including large landscaping projects. Another feature is the ample availability of topiary plants, not only in traditional shapes (balls, trees, espaliers, etc.) but also the most unusual: all kind of animals, from elephants to dinosaurs, dolphins to horses, cars to bicycles to motorcycles, with endless possibilities.

‘VESTIRE IL PAESAGGIO’ ‘Vestire il Paesaggio’ (‘Styling the Landscape’) was held for the first time in 2007, organized by Renato Ferretti and the Pistoia Province staff, followed by two other incarnations in 2010 and 2013. The next event was planned for 2016, however it was decided to postpone it until 2017 to coincide with the events of Pistoia Italian Capital of Culture, with a smaller version that took place at the end of 2015.

“The event was really successful,” says Mr. Ferretti. “We were able to introduce an international audience to the beauties of Pistoia and how strong our town is within the industry. The program was very diverse including an international workshop, visits to the leading nurseries and to other attractions of the town, for instance the ‘1000 flower tapestry’ and the embroidery museum and cultural events like concerts and performances.”

“The event was really successful, we were able “ to introduce an international audience to the beauties of Pistoia.”

Renato Ferretti

Organiser ‘Vestire il Paesaggio’

Smart solutions

Pots made out of plastic are not just an important part of modern plant production but can also be a useful marketing tool to showcase the latest developments in this field. Pöppelmann, based in Northern Germany in Lohne (Lower-Saxony), is well known for its TEKU®-products.

A technology partnership between Pöppelmann TEKU® and potting machine producer Mayer is a further step towards innovations that offer solutions for growers.

The company produces cultivation systems and a huge variety of plant pots for the horticulture industry. It was founded in 1949 as a cork factory by brothers Joseph and Hubert Pöppelmann and is still a family-owned business. In the spring of 1955, the brothers bought their first injection moulding machine which was their start into the plastics processing industry. Since then, the company, consisting of five production sites with 550 injection moulding machines, extruders and thermoforming lines, has expanded wildly. It is one of the leading manufacturers in the plastic processing industry employing more than 1,900 highlyqualified employees worldwide and exporting to more than 90 countries.

FOUR AREAS OF OPERATION TEKU® is one of Pöppelmann’s four areas of operation. By continually keeping an eye on the market, the TEKU® division has an in-depth understanding of the industry and customers’ needs, a key factor for their product innovations and sustainable solutions. One of the newest products is the MDF Coverpot series which offers added value and is a marketing tool, as well. The attractive Coverpots fit perfectly around their other plastic pots and make it a very smart pot-in-pot system. The Coverpot has space for storing water at the bottom to reduce watering frequency when used in connection with the Waterwick™ Stick. The water level can be checked easily without removing the inner pot from the MDF Coverpot. The planting pot series MDF Coverpot offers gardeners attractive visual decoration thanks to the IML-process (In-Mould-Labelling). The pots come in many different designs, some inspired by annual holidays or gift days like Easter or Mother’s Day, others refer to special events e.g. this year’s FIFA World Cup. It is also possible to order pots with a custom design, depending on the quantity required. In addition, there is a special presentation tray available with lower rims which makes it easier to see the eyecatching designs of the pots at the POS. Another recent introduction is PÖPPELMANN blue®, inspired by the increasing need for sustainable solutions in the industry. The blue resource-saving plant pots are made out of 100 percent recycled material. These plant pots close the raw material loop and the special blue colour makes it easy to identify the pots when they are at the recycling plant. The RFID (radio-frequency-identification) technology is an invention that facilitates stocktaking by means of a radio frequency label that is attached to the product. Every label can then be scanned as a basis for further quick and easy use of the product data.

PARTNERSHIP A technology partnership between Pöppelmann TEKU® and potting machine producer Mayer is a further step towards innovations that offer solutions for growers. This close collaboration could help increase the level of automation needed to compensate for the lack of labour in the horticulture industry today. To check the impact of innovations and the improvements of products, Pöppelmann TEKU® works with a market research company. The results of a recent test of different trays and plant pots, for instance, are not only used within the company but are also made available online, together with extra tips and ideas to the trade. These results show interesting ways to add value to a basic necessity such as a plant pot and even show how to turn it into a useful marketing tool.

Our brand promise is to offer high-quality, healthy and tasty products, perfectly “ suited to both ornamental and culinary usage.”

Christophe Reineri

From ornamental to organic citrus production

What on earth made BIOAGRUMES switch from flowering pot plants to citrus forcing, while also introducing organic plants with ready-to-eat fruit and leaves?

While working as a production manager in Provence, Frédéric Sérusier realized the potential of citrus and the lack of French production. Thus, he created his company near Angers in 1997 and began to acclimatize citrus imported from Sicily. In 2010, he made the first strategic shift to become the citrus production specialist in France and switched a portion of the production to organic in 2014. To this end, the company started to work with the San Giuliano French Agronomy research institute INRA in Corsica, known for its expansive citrus collection. Today, BIOAGRUMES grows more than 100,000 plants, with 56 varieties of the citrus genus: orange, grapefruit, limes, clementines, tangerines, kumquats, combava, cedrate, et al. Both production and complementary imports from Sicily are marketed by Agrumes de Méditerranée, their sister company.

COMPANY STRATEGY The arrival of new majority shareholder Christophe Reineri in 2017 gave impetus to a new company strategy. “Our aim is to become the first European supplier of organic ready-toeat citrus, in addition to Mediterranean plants for the highend urban market: plants with fruit, but also leaves and flowers,” says Christophe. To achieve this goal, the company is working towards three goals:

• Fulfill European food safety requirements to sell ready-

to-eat products. Growing organically is not enough to claim that fruit, leaves or flowers are ready-to-eat. We have started implementing food safety measures with the objective of obtaining the MPS-fruit and Vegetable certification. We are also developing partnerships with Southern European growers equally committed to sustainability and food safety, either through GlobalGap or

MPS-Fruit & Vegetables, to complement our product range. • Diversification is the second goal: BIOAGRUMES will continue diversifying its citrus collection but also develop a comprehensive range of edible organic Mediterranean fruit and/or leaves, like figs or laurel. • Innovation and securing our parental material: The company’s development plan includes the creation of a propagation unit and expansion into a new greenhouse. The propagation unit will allow BIOAGRUMES to come to market earlier, but also to implement new propagation techniques and grow species and varieties that are more cold-resistant, adaptable to northern markets.

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES Although not located in Southern Europe, the company benefits from several competitive advantages such as unique niche market positioning, a wide range of product, excellent customer’ service thanks to its proximity to the market and, perhaps most important, the absence of the bacterial disease Xylella fastidiosa, which facilitates BIOAGRUMES to grow organically.

DEVELOPMENT PROSPECTS Christophe is very enthusiastic about the company’s development prospects. “Our first contact at IPM confirmed the relevance of our strategy and leads us to be optimistic. I feel confident that our present choices will create value for BIOAGRUMES, our partners and the end consumer. Our brand promise is to offer high-quality, healthy and tasty products, perfectly suited to both ornamental and culinary usage”.

Author: Marie-Françoise Petitjean

Ornamental production in France (2016)

• 3,611 growers • 15,471 ha of which 1,613 ha covered and 13,858 ha uncovered • Production value at farm gate: € 1.2 billion

Source : Observatoire des données structurelles des entreprises de production de l’horticulture et de la pépinière ornementales France – AND pour FranceAgrimer 2016