Stay the course

Photo courtesy of Dutch Mill Greenhouse

Bob Berbee, the CEO of Dutch Mill Greenhouse, a prominent retail garden center in the central Ohio community of Marysville, has successfully navigated a challenging 2024 season. Despite an abbreviated growing season, the business — catering to homeowners and landscapers — achieved sales that met expectations.

“Our sales are up [in 2024], and we’re on track to go back to our best year ever, which for us is a huge win,” Berbee says. “Considering the last five years have been phenomenal, the sales kind of plateaued, and to see that ticker going upward is a boost of confidence for us.”

By maintaining strategic focus on efficiency and data-driven insights, Berbee is poised to replicate the success of recent years and continue offering a diverse range of traditional and unique plants to Dutch Mill’s customers.

“Our town has seen tremendous growth over the last five to 10 years, and our county is actually one of the fastest-growing counties in Ohio,” Berbee says. “You could say we were in the right place at the right time.”

Berbee offers his perspective on the state of the industry and what factors shape his outlook for 2025.

Mike Zawacki: How would you describe 2024’s business climate?

Bob Berbee: For us, we looked at that two different ways: the ease of getting product in and what was the result from that. So, it was relatively easy to find all the necessary things for our season, from the finished products we’re buying from growers to everything we grow ourselves. So, being prepared has definitely paid off. It was a smooth, productive year, and the sales were in line with that as well. The season started off tremendously early. We didn’t have a winter, and people were ready to plant stuff way before we felt comfortable selling the product. But it’s hard to hard to turn people away. However, that also resulted in ending about a week or two earlier as well. We usually keep well-stocked and ordered all the way through Memorial Day. And I would say by Memorial Day [2024], we noticed sales had started declining rapidly.

MZ: How does this type of year impact your planning for 2025?

BB: We’re going to plan for a year similar to 2023. This year was an anomaly, and we do not anticipate an early spring again. We didn’t see frost in May, which is unusual for us. So, we’re going to be in line with 2023’s projections at the moment because 2024 got started way too soon for us.

MZ: How do you account for labor not being a business challenge?

BB: Great question. As far as the pay ranges, we’re right in line where we need to be. We just offer a very unique working environment. We let our teams take control of what they’re involved in. So, everybody has ownership, and they take a lot of pride in their work here. As a result, our retention rate is north of 85%.

MZ: What is your focus heading into 2025?

BB: We’re going to focus on being more efficient, and we’re also going to put a bigger emphasis on collecting data and letting those numbers do the talking for us. With the amount of growing that we do here, we’re trying to put more things on drips and timers and roll-up sides [to control temperature] … the amount of technology that’s available to us is tremendous. So, one of our guys found moisture meters, and now we don’t even have to turn a hose on anymore. It’s those types of efficiencies that we didn’t even know were available to us.

MZ: How will you focus on analytics and data management?

BB: Most of our efforts obviously go towards the annuals. If it’s 4-1/2 inch or flats, every time we put an order in with our supplier, we will put that into a spreadsheet. We’re not scanning a flat of zinnias versus a flat of petunias. We’re not set up for that, and I doubt a lot of people are. But what we can do is every time we order, we put that into a spreadsheet, and then we’ll be able to track those numbers by what we dump. So that’s the numbers we’re currently looking at and determining how to be more efficient on less dumping [of unused or unsellable plant materials]. So, we’re focusing primarily on annuals, and we’re trying to be less than 10% [wasted]. That’s our goal. Unfortunately, in 2024, we were north of 15%.

Mike Zawacki is a Cleveland-based writer who has been covering various aspects of the green and horticulture industries for nearly 20 years.