COVER STORY — At Your Service
For the past 44 years, the owners and staff members of Pell Greenhouse in Hudsonville, Michigan, have prided themselves in providing superb quality and excellent service. Like many other greenhouse operations, Pell Greenhouse is a family business with deep roots. Founded by Lee Pell in 1970, brothers Ken and Bob joined the venture a year later as co-owners. Their youngest brother Roger eventually came on board as well as head grower.
Although their business model has transformed over the years, their continued dedication to honest and reliable service has ensured them success in a challenging time for the industry. Today, their business structure is unlike most, but the Pells continue to do what they do best: grow a great plant and deliver it on time.
A Behind-the-Scenes Grower
Pell Greenhouse’s customer base has certainly transformed over the years — going from selling to local garden centers in the beginning to big box stores and grocery chains presently. With their main focus being the quality of their production, Pell has never had a problem finding a buyer.
With an ever-changing market and constant consolidation at the retail level, Pell Greenhouse has developed an interesting business model that is in place today. While they’re not technically a sub-grower, their contracts are made through other large growers. The main difference between Pell Greenhouse and a typical sub-grower is that they ship all their product directly to the retailers.
“It’s not a typical sub-growing situation because we grow it and ship it to the stores,” shares Darin DeCator, general manager. “It’s a different structure on both ends.”
“We sell through the other greenhouses,” he adds. “We’re kind of on the back end, behind the scenes. We’re not dealing with the buyer face to face. [The other greenhouses] figure it all out and come to us.”
While Pell goes through several large growers for selling its lineup of finished crops, two large growers account for the majority of their sales.
This hasn’t been the company’s structure for long, but this is where market conditions have taken them. Many larger growers in the Michigan area that may not have the capacity to keep up with their retail contracts have no choice but to sub out a portion of their production. And Pell Greenhouse has earned a stellar reputation for taking on
those orders.
According to Lee Pell, owner, they have the capability to grow just about anything and they are able to ship direct
to the stores, two very important factors that the larger growers don’t have to stress about when contracting through Pell.
Shipping Advantage
One of the biggest advantages Pell Greenhouse is able to offer to its grower partners is the ability to ship. “We’re not just a 100-percent grower,” says Pell. “We’re a grower-shipper facility.”
Pell Greenhouse currently ships finished plants throughout the Midwest from Michigan, west to Illinois, down to Kentucky and all the way out to Virginia.
They own their own trailers, and they sub out to a trucking company for deliveries. “They do 99 percent of our deliveries,” says DeCator.
While shipping finished plants has a great deal of challenges, it’s something Pell Greenhouse does extremely well. They’ve developed a reliable system that works well for themselves and for
their customers.
Pell is aware of the poor trickle effect unreliable shipping can have on both growers and retailers, and that’s why it’s one of his biggest goals to get plants to the stores on time.
“When you order a load of flowers, we get it there,” says Pell. “And not a week later. They call today, plants are there tomorrow.”
In order to fulfill orders in a timely manner, Pell Greenhouse is almost constantly shipping, especially during peak season. In the spring, they ship to stores six to seven times a week, says DeCator. In the fall, it goes down to three times a week. During poinsettia season, they ship twice a week.
“Getting stuff to look nice when it gets to the store is the biggest challenge,” shares DeCator. “It’s the balance between getting product on the truck and having it sell when it comes off the truck.”
And Pell Greenhouse has mastered that balance.
Quality Production
While shipping and delivery is one half of the equation, ensuring the product they are shipping is top quality is the other.
“Every year we improve on our quality,” says Pell. “We’ve got a good product.”
DeCator says another benefit for their customers is that they are able to grow just about anything. “Some growers aren’t able to grow some items,” he shares. “There are varieties in the spring and early spring that we’ve grown that aren’t typical spring plants,” such as cyclamen, calceolaria, kalanchoe and violets.
“That’s one of the benefits we offerÉ we can supply them all year with what they need,” states DeCator.
“Basically we have four different growing areas in this complex,” shares Pell. “We have a propagation area with heated benches, lights, shade, etc. We have heated ebb and flow floors; we have basic houses which will grow bedding plants. We have an outdoor growing facility. And we’re able to shade our entire mum crop to bring it into bloom early.”
“We have a mixture of dynaglass, plastic and glass structures,” he adds.
According to Lee, these four growing environments are what give Pell Greenhouse the versatility to grow any crop their customers request.
Young Plants Propagation
To ensure year-round business at Pell Greenhouse, the grower is also a young plants producer. Green Fuse Botanicals makes up the majority of their young plants lineup, but they also offer other non-competing genetics from other breeder companies.
In addition to young plants production, Pell Greenhouse is also one of the bigger — if not the biggest — ipomoea stock producers.
Pell Greenhouse has been producing young plants for almost 15 years now. That portion of the business came about through a partnership with Green Fuse (formerly Bodger) and has grown and expanded since.
Pell says they are still on a learning curve when it comes to young plants, but they work on improving their propagation each year.
According to Steve Jones, owner of Green Fuse, he has moved the company’s propagation to Pell Greenhouse because of the sophistication of their growing and their quality propagation areas.
Another very important reason Green Fuse maintains such a strong tie with Pell is because of the way they pay attention to the crops’ performance each year and are open to moving into new genetics. “They look at what happened last year, what worked and what didn’t,” Jones says.
He says Pell Greenhouse is a very adaptable grower and easily makes tweaks to production when necessary. They take into consideration the feedback they receive from customers as well as suppliers.
“And they’re honest,” he adds. “They listen to people.”
Pell Greenhouse: A
t a Glance
Owners:
Lee, Ken and Bob Pell
Founded: 1970
Size: 550,000 square feet
Location: Hudsonville, Michigan
Number of employees: 50 year round, 90 during peak season
Areas of specialty: Spring annuals, mums and poinsettias as well as young plant production
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