"Back to strength"

Ninety is a venerable age, both for an individual and for a company. The fact that it is not a conventional anniversary has not prevented Floragard from celebrating the event. It was not difficult to sense in the speeches the justifiable wish to make use of the celebrations and the look back over the company’s history to achieve some degree of self-confidence again after relatively difficult years and to project an optimistic view of the future. And so the message that managing director Karl-Heinz Dautz passed on to all the guests at the anniversary event – customers, business partners, suppliers and colleagues alike – was that “Floragard is back to strength”. That the celebrations were not cancelled, coming as they did right in the middle of the crisis, was interpreted by Mr Dautz as a ray of light in the general economic misery of the moment. He emphasized his optimistic assessment demonstratively: “The mood here is good, and we rate our prospects positively.” This Oldenburg-based supplier of substrates has in fact gone through a process of reorganisation. The basic idea behind the reorientation that was tackled three years ago is internationalisation. Meanwhile the company has operations in 38 countries and has appointed its first Chinese employee, with English being adopted as the language used for dealings between the different national representations. This reorientation is becoming quite visible on the outside as well: Floragard has namely used the anniversary to introduce newly designed packaging for the hobby division. This is also being carried over into the marketplace by a comprehensive communications campaign. Here it is a matter of more than just a relaunch, for the new packaging above all reflects the streamlining of the range of products which has been going on for several years now. The company is concentrating on the expertise built up over the past 90 years in the area of soils and substrates and is largely taking leave of its range of fertilizers. New products such as a bio-line and entirely new ingredients underline this approach. “The core of the Floragard brand remains unchanged,” Mr Dautz affirmed. The new design “underlines the premium character” of the products. The close-up photos of plants that are part of the new packaging layout are especially striking. These are intended not only to look beautiful but also to underline the products’ positioning in the premium segment. From 2010 Floragard will be concentrating entirely on…