The UK’s leading distributor of horticultural products has signed a unique bulb partnership deal with a Dutch company to develop research and new products across the world.
The Butters Group has signed the joint venture agreement with Dutch bulb producer Kébol BV.
The deal will create a business that combines the production and innovation of Butters with the supply chain efficiencies and bulb expertise of Kébol.
One of the key aims of the partnership is to expand Kébol BV’s growing operation in Brazil and to explore the globe for opportunities to produce new and better quality bulbs for the UK market.
Spalding firm Butters is already the UK’s leading distributors of horticultural products.
With sales of over £50m a year, it supplies products for in-store sale and home delivery, to the leading UK high street stores.
Established in 1973 the group now employs more than 850 staff at peak times across its three sites in south Lincolnshire.
It creates and distributes more than 1,700 product lines per year.
Kébol BV is a family owned business started in 1989 and is now the largest producer of amaryllis bulbs in Brazil.
It has a production facility in Lisse, Holland, employing 25 full time staff and has a purpose built bulb facility of 30,000sq ft.
The deal means Butters will now have exclusive UK rights to distribute unique new varieties of amaryllis developed by Kébol.
Kébol‘s use of tissue culture to produce the amaryllis bulbs is now well established and the two companies believe this will give the new venture both a cost and quality advantage against competitors.
The deal is the latest in a series of moves by Butters Group to grow its business.
In 2011 the company established Butters Flowers Limited, which now packages and delivers around 70,000 flower boxes per week during the peak festivals such as Christmas, Valentine’s and Mother’s Day, using flowers imported from as far afield as South Africa, Asia and Africa.
In the same year Butters created its own growing nursery which has quadrupled in size in the last three years and now grows 3.2million plants at its 11 acre site next to the company HQ.
Last year the group bought Verde Horticulture, with sites in Hampshire and West Sussex, to create the UK’s largest plant supplier.
Butters Group managing director Andy Coaten said: “This joint venture is the latest exciting development for the Butters Group.
“It means we can offer our clients exclusive products and great quality at very competitive prices and secure a supply chain that our customers can rely on.
“It also allows us to explore some really exciting opportunities for product development across the globe.”
