As gardening continued to rise in popularity during the pandemic, GIMA – the leading trade association representing garden manufacturers – has seen its membership grow. Emerging and established brands are seeking to optimise the unrivalled portfolio of business support tools that GIMA exclusively offers members to help navigate the opportunities and challenges that are driving demand and shaping the supply chain.
During the last 12 months, GIMA has welcomed 40 new full and five associate members to its roster, representative of 11% net growth. New full members include Altico, Phoenox Textiles, The Garden Village, Barrettine, Carbon Gold, Boughton Loam, Leon Boots, Greenman Garden Tools, Fountasia, CJ Wildlife, Townend Dyes, Yorkshire Flowerpots, Anglo Peruvian Trading Ltd, Abacus Cards, Natura Gro, and Omega Imports to name a few. New associate members are Flexipol, Imprint, GEM Merchandising, H&M Distribution and JDS Strategists.
GIMA Director, Vicky Nuttall said: “On behalf of everyone at GIMA I’d like to welcome all our newest members. It’s great to see so many brands joining us to make the most of the wide range of business support tools that we offer.
“Some of our success may be due to the support that we were able to offer our members throughout lockdown; a period where many manufacturers needed additional help to navigate one of the most unprecedented periods our industry has had to face. The pandemic brought us closer to our members in lots of ways, and we were able to firmly establish our position within the industry as the voice of the supplier and we continued to represent our members on numerous industry panels and groups. We look forward to working with each one of our members as we navigate 2022 together, and to remaining the go-to trade association for garden manufacturers and providing them with a voice when it is needed most.”
The GIMA offering
In recent years, GIMA has added several new services to its member support portfolio, designed to enhance the existing raft of tools available. Summarised by five core areas of focus – Saving, Connecting, Promoting, Representing and Supporting – services available to members include access to unrivalled networking events such as the forthcoming GIMA Day Conference on EPR, the ever-popular GIMA Awards and Charity Golf Day, as well as access to tools and consultancy to support maximising brand exposure, discounted rates for events, services, training, exhibitions, market data, trends content, plus market insight to keep members up to date on essential business and industry information.
Recently added support includes the Plastic Packaging Pledge, the objective of which is to minimise any adverse impact from all types of plastic packaging used in the garden products supply chain. Members have access to a wealth of information around alternative suppliers, materials, the plastics tax and the forthcoming changes in Extended Producer Responsibility regulations.
