Success for Buckinghamshire Entrepreneur
A Buckinghamshire entrepreneur who started out trading from the back of his trailer has reached new heights to become the largest independent supplier of turf in the UK.
George Davies – whose ‘side venture’ selling turf first began on his father’s farm in Olney in 2001 – has been reflecting on his incredible journey having taken George Davies Turf to a £5million business.
The company supplies high quality turf to landscape gardeners, homeowners, and some of the UK’s most well-known sporting and leisure venues, including Silverstone Circuit, St James’s Palace in London, the Chelsea Flower Show and others.
As he prepares to celebrate the business’ milestone 21st anniversary and the launch of a new app, George believes his new vision and ambitious growth plans will ‘jet-propel’ the business towards even greater achievements to become the go-to supplier of premium landscaping materials in Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, and Hertfordshire.
‘Farming was all I ever wanted to do. My father was a farmer, so I discovered a love for it from an early age, but I had no idea 21 years ago that my side hustle would end up becoming a multi-million-pound business,’ said George, who maintains the same strategy today as he did all those years ago – to only ever source golf-course quality turf from the country’s best providers, to guarantee freshness every time with 2-hour delivery slots, and to focus entirely on a personalised customer service.
‘We now deliver 1.4 million rolls of turf and supply 35,000 gardens a year within a 40-mile radius of our Olney and St Albans bases. There is no other independent turf provider that operates at this level, which is incredible when I’d only ever intended for it to be a short-term way to supplement what I was earning on my father’s farm,’ said George.
A far cry from the early days when George would run all of his local deliveries from his Peugeot 306 passenger car and a trailer as a ‘one-man band’, the company now owns a fleet of seven striking red 32-tonne lorries with forklift trucks and employs a team of 19 people – it is all this that has inspired a huge rebrand and expansion into new markets.
‘For nine years I ran the business on my own, but it’s not just me hand-balling the turf off the back of my trailer anymore. We now have a team of exceptional drivers and dedicated support staff, and are making huge leaps into new markets to supply thousands of orders of landscaping materials like topsoil, composite decking, seed and artificial grass.
‘We are a local company through and through so that we can maintain the high level of freshness we are known for with the promise of 2-hour delivery slots, but our new strapline, ‘proud of our history, excited about the future’ suits our message as a forward-thinking, digitally focused business. We are on an exciting trajectory of growth as a company, but I will never forget where I started.’
George Davies Turf rebrand will include a new look and feel, a new website with e-commerce focus, and a new app to speed up customer orders and service for busy landscape gardeners and homeowners – the first of its kind in the industry.
The app will launch in September and will be available for download from all smartphones, tablets and devices. For more information on George Davies Turf visit: www.georgedaviesturf.co.uk.