b'READY TO RIDE THEROLLERCOA S T E RWith 2021 planting ahead, home garden and vegetable seed companies prepare for another potential boom. Alex MartinWHEN STAY-AT-HOMEorders hit lastStokes Seeds has facilities in bothcompany, Gale notes growers in March, home garden and vegetablethe U.S. and Canada and reportedCanada suffered due to foreign seed companies found themselves inunbelievable demand in the homeworker problems. an unprecedented situation: hundredsgarden section in both countries. Canada was slow in getting clear-and hundreds of new seed orders.Both our U.S. and Canada web- ances for a lot of the staff that came As 2021 begins, these businessessites were shut down for periods, orup from Mexico and the Caribbean, are ready for anything. they were only allowing so manywhich caused a number of our grow-Wayne Gale, president of Ontariosorders per day, Gale says. For aers to suffer, he says. There were a Stokes Seeds, says that at first, histime, even our call centres were shutlot of early crops that were either not company thought it was a mistakedown in order to facilitate more effi- planted or not harvested.when orders began to flood in backcient use of staff in entering orders,On the U.S. commercial side, Gale in 2020. Gale can pin down the exactinstead of being on a call for halfnotes that they had less of a foreign date that his sales went through thean hour to 45 minutes listening to aworker issue, and more of a market roofand it was right after the gro- dictation of an order. issue. cery store panic buying started.Diane Blazek, executive directorIf youre a type of grower supply-One week after the groceryof the National Garden Bureau (NGB)ing onions in a five-pound bag to gro-stores went through the roof, ourin the United States, says this wasntcery stores, there really wasnt a huge orders went through the roof as well,just a trend at Stokes Seeds. Theproblem, he says. However, if youre Gale says. The season had started tohome garden seed sector found itselfon the side of the industry selling a slow down to the point we normallyon quite the rollercoaster ride.50-pound bag of onions to universi-only get between 300 to 400 ordersWhen we all met last year at theties, cafeterias, processorsthose on the home garden seed side. ThatASTA Flower & Veg show, everythingtypesthen you suffered, because week, customer service told me wewas just like normal, Blazek says.the restaurants and cafeterias closed.had more than 1,000 orders on theThen, everything really broke looseOne thing in particular Blazek website alone. in February and March, and therenotes was how amazing it was for the Gale says that earlier in the week,were a lot of unknowns about whatretailers to come together and solve there had been some tinkeringexactly was going to happen, andthis problem.done on the website, so initially, hehow it would impact our industry. Weve heard so many heart-thought there was an error and thewarming, innovative stories on how orders had been duplicated. Seeing and Tackling Problems companies were able to deal with We went back in and realized thatGale found some difficulty in fulfill- everything, she says. You know, these were all from new customers anding orders with the pandemic. theyre in the midst of shipping out they were all new orders, he says.There was a lot of COVIDto the consumers when the pandemic One thing Gale says is importantanxiety in employees, and I knowhit, and suddenly, no one was able to to know is that these new customerssome companies did better manag- be in their offices. But we were hear-didnt have the Stokes Seeds catalogue. ing it than we did, he says. A loting anywhere between 200 per cent These new customers found usof people didnt want to come intoto 400 per cent of normal seed orders on the internet and ordered every- work. We lost a lot of staff, especiallyand sales.thing cold turkey on the website, hein the home garden side. Trying to tackle that kind of says.On the commercial side of thedemand with short staff made it dif-40GERMINATION.CAMARCH 2021'