Rainer Schubert, MD at Burgon & Ball, discusses their long and successful partnership with the RHS

Thanks for joining us! Let’s start in the obvious place… What is Burgon & Ball – and what do they do?
Burgon & Ball can trace its roots back to 1730 in Sheffield, making sheep shears and other agricultural tools. The patent on our cast steel shears dates from 1865, and we still make those same sheep shears today, exporting them all around the globe. In the early twentieth century, the garden tools side of the business overtook the agricultural side in turnover, and today we’re known for our premium garden tools, accessories and gifts.

Innovation is a big part of our ethos. We try not to simply accept the status quo. Instead, we’re always working to come up with new ideas to help gardeners. We examine how people garden, and aim to solve their problems, helping them to get more enjoyment out of gardening.

Last year, Burgon & Ball scooped a GIMA Award for its trowel collection endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society; the RHS. What was the award?
The GIMA Awards from the Garden Industry Manufacturers’ Association are long established as the garden industry event of the year. They’re a celebration of product and marketing innovation, open to suppliers of products being sold within the garden retail sector.

We were thrilled to take top honours in the ‘Garden Tools, Machinery and Implements’ category. Garden tools are our core expertise and our heritage. To have our three new RHS-endorsed trowels do so well was a real endorsement of our approach to innovation. We look at trends in gardening –and at what gardeners need to make it easier – and we respond with the perfect tool for the job. In this instance, it was hand tools focused on planting, that favourite and most creative of gardening tasks.

What else is in the range? What should we be looking out for?
Our RHS-endorsed range consists of over 120 gardening tools, and we regard it as our flagship range. We’re delighted to enjoy this fruitful long-term collaboration with such a trusted, respected and well-known horticultural organisation as the RHS. All the stainless-steel tools in the range carry a no-quibble lifetime guarantee, and the cutting tools carry a ten-year guarantee. We believe it brings real peace of mind to the gardener that they’re buying a quality gardening tool which will last.

As well as classic gardening tools such as spades and secateurs, we like to delve into our archive of historic garden tool designs. This has led to tools such as our rockery trowel, dandelion weeder and weeding fork. We also like to adapt designs to respond to customer needs. For example, inspired by the frequent requests from gardeners at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show for ‘unlosable tools’, we came up with our RHS-endorsed FloraBrite® range. With bright fluorescent colours and reflective highlights, these tools will never be left behind in the garden at the end of the day!

How did this collection come about? Tell us about the development process!
When we come up with a new garden tool, we work closely with the RHS to make sure that our design is based on sound horticultural knowledge. We’ll talk about how it fits into gardening trends, and about environmental considerations…

Once we reach the prototype stage, we like to give samples to the RHS gardeners to ‘road test’ at the RHS gardens. These knowledgeable gardeners know how to get the most out of their tools, and subtle tweaks can be suggested. Sometimes, the process works in reverse. Our RHS-endorsed CultiRake is an example of where the RHS gardeners described a tool that they’d find useful, and we then developed it.

And what is the CultiRake?
The CultiRake is a hybrid of a rake and a cultivator. It clears the ground, creating an attractive tilled surface, and the double-strength outer tines can be used to excavate individual weeds. It’s a real time-saver.

The partnership you have with the RHS sounds unusually close. What else makes it special?
We’ve worked closely with the RHS since 2012, so it’s a long-term relationship. The RHS is a name which holds a unique place in the hearts of gardeners, and our association with them is very important to us. We know each other’s ethos, we respect each other’s expertise, and we both see clear benefit to working closely together.

As well as garden tools, the collaboration also carries seamlessly through into gifting ranges. We launched our first RHS Gifts for Gardeners collections back in 2013. The concept is straightforward: ranges of appealing gardening gifts featuring botanical illustrations specially selected from the RHS Lindley Collections. Many of the gifts include our RHS-endorsed tools in limited-edition colours. It was a success around the world, and since then we have introduced further collections with new designs and new gift ideas, to continually refresh and extend the range.

In terms of your own background, how did you come to be doing what you do?
I’ve always worked for large businesses, focussed on brands and on the consumer. After graduating from New Zealand’s University of Auckland with a Bachelor of Commerce degree majoring in marketing, my start was in the beer industry, with Lion Nathan. As a young twenty-something, it was a bit of a dream job! After several years I was transferred to the company’s UK office, where I worked for another four years. Following that, I moved into DIY and Dulux paint with ICI – now part of Akzo Nobel.

This is quite a diverse mix… Where next?
Next into the garden industry with Scotts Miracle-Gro – now Evergreen Garden Care. After decades working with brands on a global scale, I’ve been delighted to join Burgon & Ball, and I’ve been MD for nearly five years now. It’s a company with an exceptional 300-year history, family-owned until 2018 when it became part of the global Venanpri Group of heritage tool brands.

I’m relishing the challenge of using the reach and resources available to us through the Venanpri Group to modernise Burgon & Ball while retaining the brand’s essence – and respecting its heritage. The company is in a great place, building on strong foundations to become fit for the future and fulfil our growth ambitions – and we’re enjoying it as we go along!

What’s the one question I could have asked you today but didn’t?
You might have asked: What’s next for Burgon & Ball?

Which would be an excellent question so… What’s next for Burgon & Ball?
We’re looking forward to expanding into new categories and delivering the tools, accessories and gifts that gardeners want. We’re excited to be able to do that in collaboration with the RHS. There’s such a fantastic fit between the organisations – both respected names with premium positioning and steeped in heritage.

We also have an exciting pipeline of new product development for the coming years – both in terms of our collaboration with the RHS, and independently. In the last year alone, we’ve launched a new range of RHS-endorsed garden brushes which were extremely well received; RHS Growing Gardeners, a new family gardening concept supported by an online resource of expert projects and advice from the RHS; and ‘Asteraceae’, a new RHS Gifts for Gardeners collection. Not to mention the GIMA Award-winning new RHS trowels! There’s plenty more new ideas to come, so there’s lots to look forward to.

Fantastic stuff, thank you Rainer.