Garden Centre Catering Continues to Grow Strong
Garden centre catering is a thriving sector with sales from food and drink increasing year on year. Figures from the Garden Centre Association (GCA) show that last year catering sales grew by 28.69% vs 2023.
Garden Centres as Lifestyle Destinations
The fortunes of garden centres changed once they became more of a destination, offering lifestyle products as well as plants. As Lorna Maye, owner of Mayfield Lavender, says, “They provide a place where consumers can buy plants and decorations for the garden and dine in a pleasant setting. Many venues including us realise that good food is an integral part of the whole experience and have elevated their culinary offerings.”
Peter Burks, chief executive, GCA agrees, noting the hard work and investment garden centres have made to level-up their offering and meet the demands of today’s consumer. He says, “The quality of food and drink available in a garden centre has improved over recent years. We have large, free car parks as well as dry undercover areas boasting other interests and attractions.”
Food and Drink as a Key Revenue Stream
At Green Pastures, 60% of income comes from food and drink, including the farm shop. The team opened a café 10 years ago which quickly became a busy restaurant. “The plan was to offer jacket potatoes, but now we have a catering team of 22 including five chefs,” says James.
The menu evolves with the seasons and uses ingredients from local suppliers and the farm shop. Last year it won “Afternoon Tea of the Year” in the Garden Centre Catering Awards, which hugely increased afternoon food and drink sales. The centre tailors their afternoon tea according to the time of year, offering themes to celebrate Halloween and Christmas amongst others.
“Garden centres are filling a void in the community,” says Justin Williams, managing director of Fron Goch Garden Centre in Caernarfon, Wales. “We have regular customers who come here every day, some three times a day. We offer affordable daytime dining where people can meet others.”
Freshly made food is high on the agenda for diners. “If you order a sandwich, it is made for you. The quiche is made that morning, scones are baked every hour. This isn’t the case in some chain eateries – you don’t get that freshness,” he says.
Menu Adaptation and Customer Focus
The restaurant at Fron Goch has 205 covers indoors and 70 outdoors, with 70 catering staff. The menu is tweaked every six months with recent changes to offer more choices for older teenagers and people in their 20s. “We don’t want to lose sales because the kids don’t want to come here. It helps us in the school holidays too. Older customers tend to come during the week whereas at weekends the average age is lower with more families. We have to understand who’s coming when and cater to them.”
For chefs, garden centres are an attractive place to work. Justin says, “There’s a huge movement happening with people’s attitude to work which has changed since Covid with the focus on work/life balance. If you don’t want to work evenings and have at least every other weekend off, you need to get out of mainstream catering and move into garden centres.”
