How did you get started in in the Christmas tree business, and what did you do before it?
I was a bit of an adventurer—I was a ski instructor and then I had a holiday company and took people to Africa. Then I was a teacher, but I was trying to leave the profession. I’d had a couple of market stalls in Portobello Road before, and near to where I was living there was a convenient place near the Rugby Club in Richmond, and it was getting close to Christmas time so I thought maybe you could sell some some Christmas trees. I researched around and met some people in the Christmas tree business and and they all seemed to think it was possible.
So I gathered together my savings, which were fairly meagre, and committed to quite a few trees—it was actually quite scary because you buy them and you don’t know if you’re going to sell any or not, and you have to order them quite early. And that’s still the case actually, it still remains fairly risky in that way, because there’s a time lag—you can’t just go and buy them, they have to cut them down and get them to you and it’s a very short trading period, so that’s always quite sensitive.
I did that first year and I just about broke even, but we did a bit better the next year—not exactly a lot of money, but I was still teaching so that was okay. Security at night was a problem, so I tried sleeping in the cabin on site myself in order to save on security, but that didn’t work at all! Then I opened another site and another one, and twenty years later you’ve got ten sites around London.
It sounds more complex than people might imagine! What drives you?
For me it’s always been about supplying a good tree at a fair price. It’s hard work, but it does work if you do it right: you have to pay attention to the numbers, to the quality of the trees, to the sites that you have. Trees come in at all different prices, and you have to be aware of what you’re getting, so you have to go out and look at the trees and see them, and also the costs of providing them in London are more than you would think: they’re quite bulky to move around and they’re quite perishable, so it’s not that straightforward.
Every business has its difficulties, but you are supplying all these Christmas trees for neighbourhoods in London during December, traffic’s terrible, it is… logistically challenging!
Where do you get your trees from?
Wherever they’re good really! You keep in touch with various suppliers and then you go to look at them—a lot of them are from Scotland this year.
What sort of trees do you usually stock—spruce, fir?
There’s lots of different types, but actually the number of types is reducing a bit, because quality is such an issue with the consumer now, people want a particular shape of tree, and that’s very hard to achieve with anything except the Nordmann. So it’s a lot of Nordmanns that we sell. But we also sell Frasers and Spruces.
The Nordmann is a good-looking tree, and easy for the grower as well. The economics of Christmas tree growing are quite challenging because of the length of time that you invest: you plant your crop—and that’s a lot of money that you spend early on—and then you have to look after it for seven or eight years.
Frost damage and diseases are the two major issues. So if you get a late frost that’s a problem, once it’s started budding out—flushing, as they call it, then that can really hurt. When I say hurt, it just disfigures the tree; it wouldn’t be a problem for the tree if it was in the wild growing like a tree, but as a crop it’s a cosmetic product.
With such a short focal trading window, what do you do the rest of the year in the business?
What you try to do is you try to spread out the work as much as possible, otherwise it’s too much in the season, so although we have about 150 people working for us during the season they’re all part-time, then in the summer there’s just one and a half, me and another guy.
A lot of the business admin gets gets done in the summer, as well as maintaining the relationships with all our landlords and visiting the the tree growers, trying to find new new sites. It’s amazing how it spreads out—because a lot of the admin doesn’t get done during the season, because it’s too tricky, so then when it ends you’ve got a pile of paperwork. But it’s definitely true that you work much harder during six months a year than you do the other six, so it’s quite an interesting work/life balance.
What are the best and worst parts of the business for you?
It’s quite risky—and I don’t really feel that I’m a particular risk-taker, so I try to minimise the risk. I like the service, that we’re providing trees—I like Christmas trees! I appreciate the ability that we have to fund charity work, that makes me feel good about what I do, and I enjoy the camaraderie and the joint adventure and expedition that develops each season too, and then the excitement around that as you get together the whole team, the trees start coming in, and it’s an adventure. And the team builds and we get people coming back year after year.
I also enjoy the rest period and the fact that in the summer there’s not so much to do, though I find the intensity of the work at Christmas quite challenging. But I like the fact that at the end of a season you shut everything down, so in January we’re closing everything down, and then really there are no imperatives for a while, there’s nothing that you have to do. There’s stuff that you should be doing for the business, but where October-November-December-January is all urgency, late nights and hard work, in February then you don’t have to do that.
One of the things I don’t like about it is the bureaucracy, that is difficult. Because we’re temporaries you’ve got all the bureaucratic overheads every year, but only for three weeks, and you go away and then you have to do them all again. Although of course you have to run your business responsibly, nevertheless you can get bogged down in that paperwork, so that side of it I find very onerous.
How long is the key sales period?
A lot of businesses and shops like to get their trees in early, because then they have their holidays and it’s jolly to have trees up earlier, so we opened on the 20th November, but we wouldn’t advise anyone buying for your house to do it then—you really shouldn’t be looking before the first week in December. People make their own minds up about this, but it is a perishable product.
How can you extend the life of a cut tree in the home?
If you look after it properly—and you really can look after it properly—you can take steps that significantly prolong its freshness. You’ve got to cut off the bottom, we’ll do that for you but one way or another it has to be done, you wouldn’t buy a bunch of tulips and then not cut the bottom stems off. If you don’t make that fresh cut then then it seals up the plant and doesn’t allow it to transpire as it should.
Then it depends where you keep it; if you keep it right next to the radiator on full blast it doesn’t matter how much you water it, the thing is definitely going to fail, fairly briskly. So you might want to turn the radiator off that the tree is next to and balance the heating out in the other parts of the room.
Could you put a Nordmann fir outdoors and make it last longer?
Yes, they’re amazing—if the temperature goes down they last for ages. Six weeks, eight weeks, they’re good outdoors. It’s very different—the indoor environment is for us humans all about being warm and dry, but trees like cold and wet, so if it’s outdoors it’ll last much better.
You are involved with the charity TreeAid, which plants trees to help reforest the drylands of Africa. How long have you been working with them?
Six to eight years. Businesses should do something if they can. Obviously your initial responsibilities are to compliance with all the regulations and to your staff and your customers, but if you find that you can provide help in the charitable sector it’s an extra challenge that’s interesting and it adds a new dimension to your business.
For me it was just a good thing to do and adds another layer to your work, why you’re doing it and what it’s all about. Then on top of that the public recognise it and it becomes a legitimate part of your corporate identity, and customers may choose you because of it, so it’s not without a commercial benefit.
It can be a challenge, but for us it it helps with our landlords, it helps with the public, and it helps very much in Africa with the work that TreeAid does: it’s very important work and I have a connection with East Africa, so I was very aware of the deforestation problems there, you can’t really go there and not be.
Any hot tips for favourite places in west London?
It’s not really a tip, but I love Kew Gardens and I like Chiswick Park as well.
Do you tend to make big Christmas plans, or not because it’s so busy?
Not big but we have a family Christmas—we do manage that. I finish on Christmas Eve, we all do really, and we get Christmas Day and Boxing Day to wind down a bit and enjoy ourselves, but then it’s back up and running.
Do you have a life or work motto?
It’s going to sound presumptuous, but it’s a good idea to not focus too much on your own needs, you can you can lose yourself if you focus too much on just what you want.
What about a preferred festive decorating theme?
It’s a sentimental time for me, Christmas, so I don’t tend to buy new decorations, it’s all about making decorations or retrieving old decorations from my family’s past. My favourite one is a knitted Christmas pudding from 40 years ago. So I’m all about retaining the memories, or keeping the family tradition going.
Do you have any Christmas traditions, or focal aspects that ‘make’ your Christmas?
On Christmas morning we always open the stockings in bed, so my Christmas tradition—when I know it’s Christmas—really is wrapping and making the stockings on Christmas Eve, it tends to be the last thing I do.
And I do like Christmas trees. I think a tree is a lovely centerpiece of a family Christmas; you don’t really need the presents, you do need a real Christmas tree. I do say real as well because I can’t get my head around the artificial ones, I know for some people that’s an important part of Christmas, but for me it’s the scent and the realisation that it’s a real living thing, I think. Maybe that’s subtle and you’re not even that conscious of it, but you’re bringing the outdoors in at a time of year when the outdoors is generally avoided, it’s a link to the world outside.
