Garden retailers and suppliers should stop undervaluing the goods and services they provide, and concentrate on making profits, GIMA president Peter Field said at the association's annual awards dinner in Birmingham on July 17.
"When as an industry are we going to stop undervaluing what we do?" he said. "Perhaps it is a disease that has been started by the big boys, but retailers and suppliers, big and small, are as guilty as each other today."

The garden industry needs to follow the lead given by the car market or the bread market, and build value and worth, not degrade it, he said. "Now we have an economic climate where people are accepting rising prices, they realise they have had it too good for too long, whether it is food, fuel or the money they borrow - and things have got to change."

Suppliers and retailers, working together, can ride out the current world economic situations, the housing slump at home, the increasing costs of transport and all the other bits and pieces that come our way as challenges, Mr Field said. "And challenges are what we are good at - we would not be working in a seasonal weather-dependant industry if we did not appreciate a challenge."

"So why not make the 2008/09 season the turning point, and all make an effort to make better margins? Focus on profit rather than sales!"