Recorded live at Glee 2025, our latest episode of The Underground is a neat snapshot of how ideas move through the garden trade – from a sketch on the kitchen table to a product on garden centre shelves.
On one side you have GIMA membership ambassador, Tony Kersey, bringing decades of big–box buying experience to a record number of supplier members. On the other, GIMA Seed Corn Fund winner, Belle Richardson, whose start-up Seal Stop is designed to tackle water waste in gardens, smallholdings and beyond.
Put together, their stories say a lot about where the sector is heading – and what that means for brands and retailers.
Trade bodies as engines for newness
Tony’s role at GIMA exists for a reason. After a career at Sainsbury’s and Homebase, mainly in buying roles across paint, gardening and seasonal, he moved into semi-retirement and “wasn’t ready to hang up his trowel”, stepping into the ambassador position just before Glee last year.
In that short time GIMA has grown to 214 members, with around 80 new members since the previous Glee, many of them small and medium suppliers who, as Tony puts it, “need nurturing and support”.
The GIMA Lounge and Village reflect that momentum. This year’s show saw over 70 stands around the lounge and more than 104 GIMA exhibitors across Glee, the association’s largest presence to date.
This is more than a badge on the stand. Through initiatives like the GIMA buddy scheme, new members are matched with non-competing, more experienced companies for mentoring on everything from trade show preparation to marketing and presentation.
For brand and marketing teams, the message is clear: trade associations are increasingly practical partners in getting innovation market-ready, not just networking clubs.
From “us and them” to genuine collaboration
Tony is candid about how the retailer–supplier dynamic has shifted. Twenty years ago, he recalls a more aggressive focus on own brand, overseas sourcing and hard negotiation, often at the expense of UK brands and manufacturers.
Today, the bottom line still matters, but he sees greater need for retailers and manufacturers to work together to deliver “newness” that ticks boxes on sustainability, recycling and first-to-market development. Many retailers simply do not have the in-house expertise to develop these ideas alone, so partnership has become a practical necessity rather than a nice-to-have.
For suppliers, that means turning up to conversations with more than a catalogue and a price list. Robust environmental claims, clear consumer language and well thought-through activation can genuinely move a listing from ‘maybe’ to ‘yes’
Glee as the proving ground
Tony describes Glee as “the one main show in the year where members can exhibit and showcase newness and their product portfolio to buyers, retailers and company owners”.
With the show floor now reflecting that record GIMA membership, the bar is higher. New and smaller suppliers need to arrive with a clear plan:
- What story is the stand telling, about the range, not just the hero product?
- How will you follow up efficiently when you get back from the show?
- Which trade bodies, buyers or mentors can you lean on to refine your pitch before you ever set foot in the hall? (at WrightObara we’re always happy to help nail the perfect pitch)
This is where the membership ambassador role and buddy scheme come into their own. For time-poor founders, that support can be the difference between a scattergun three days and a focused, productive show.
Seal Stop: A Seed Corn case study
Against this backdrop, Belle’s story gives a very human view of what it takes to bring a genuinely new product to market.
After 11 years as an NHS radiographer, she and her husband were juggling a smallholding in Yorkshire, small children and “lots of animals”. She describes the familiar scene: hose in a trough or bucket, a distraction elsewhere and returning to “a flooded mess” – “I was doing this over and over again”.
That frustration became the catalyst for Seal Stop, a robust constant-level valve that fits a standard garden hose. Clipped to the rim of a bucket, watering can or trough, it allows the container to fill, then uses a float to shut off the water supply automatically. “So now you can walk away from it. There’s no risk of wasting water. And you can now go spend more time in the garden.”
It took five years and multiple 3D-printed prototypes to fine-tune the design, including a mechanism that has to work reliably across water pressures from 0.5 to 5.5 bar.
Belle self-funded a soft launch through her website, building an “excellent” Trustpilot rating and using customer phone feedback as informal R&D – understanding how people were using the product and what they wanted next.
Winning the GIMA Seed Corn Fund was, in her words, “everything”, giving validation, visibility and timely financial support for trade display units just as she was beginning conversations with garden centres.
For retailers and buyers, Seal Stop is a reminder that many of the most interesting new products are now coming from founders who sit outside traditional corporate R&D, but who are deeply embedded in real-world garden and smallholding life.
Sustainability without shortcuts
What stands out in Belle’s interview is how carefully she talks about sustainability.
“There’s no greenwashing here,” she says. “It was built on a sustainable core because that was really important to me.”
Her focus is the water crisis. Through the Water Literacy Programme run by Groundwork, Waterwise and Northumbrian Water, she has gained a broader view of how organisations and households can reduce water use, and she talks about the long-term goal of moving towards “water neutral” or “water positive” outcomes.
Seal Stop is already finding applications in koi ponds, hot tubs, leisure pools, farming IBCs and larger troughs, with new holders in development to cover wider container sizes.
For brands, there is a useful discipline here:
- Be specific about the problem you solve.
- Back claims with credible partnerships and programmes.
- Design for convenience so sustainable behaviour is the easy choice, not the virtuous one.
It is a particularly relevant lesson as temporary use bans and meter costs put gardeners under pressure; products that quietly reduce waste without preaching will be easier to champion in-store.
British-made as a value story
Seal Stop is also a case study in how UK manufacturing can be part of the brand story rather than just an added cost.
Belle describes herself as a “fierce networker”, determined from the outset that the product would be British made and that she would support local businesses. Through women-in-manufacturing networks she found a local injection-moulder, keeping the entire supply base in Yorkshire.
Crucially, she does not see this as an unaffordable luxury. Being able to guarantee quality and durability – including the now-famous video of Seal Stop surviving being run over by a tractor – is, in her view, worth the investment because she can hand on a product she is genuinely proud of.
For marketers, it is a reminder that origin stories and production choices are not afterthoughts. When integrated with clear functional benefits – time saved, water saved, hassle avoided – they can justify price points and foster loyalty.
Getting a leg up: Why help from the industry really matters
One of the strongest threads running through this episode is how much easier progress becomes when you stop trying to do everything on your own.
On the GIMA side, Tony talks about the buddy scheme as a practical way of matching new or smaller suppliers with experienced, non-competing members who can help with specific challenges. That might be marketing, how to present product ranges, or simply understanding what a buyer needs to see. Requests are fed into the GIMA council, then paired with someone who has the right expertise to support them, effectively creating a tailored mentoring relationship within the membership.
Belle’s story shows the informal side of that support network. Her route into the sector began when her father happened to meet Will Armitage. Months later she looked Will up on LinkedIn and, in her words, realised “I need this man” for his contacts, mentoring and coaching. Will not only became an ongoing sounding board – he was literally looking after her stand during Glee – he also encouraged her to join GIMA and the Young People in Horticulture Association, opening doors into the wider garden community.
What Belle values most, though, is the sense of not doing it alone. She talks about the connections GIMA has given her, being put in front of buyers and other members, and the importance of businesses supporting one another. “If you support other business and create a community, you’re much stronger and it feels a heck a lot less lonely as well,” she says.
For brand and marketing teams, there is a clear takeaway here. The garden sector’s networks – whether it is GIMA’s formal buddy scheme, individual mentors like Will, or peer groups through organisations such as YPHA – are not nice extras. They are part of the infrastructure that helps young brands stress-test their ideas, sharpen their story and arrive in front of buyers better prepared. In a market where time, money and attention are all tight, learning from people who have already walked the halls of Glee a few times might be one of the smartest investments a new product can make.
Where this leaves marketers and teams
Listen to Tony and Belle together and a pattern emerges.
- Networks matter. GIMA, the Young People in Horticulture Association, water authorities and manufacturing networks all play a role in getting good ideas off the ground.
- Trade shows still count. Glee remains the key stage for garden innovation; the work is in how you plan, present and follow up.
- Stories travel. Whether it is a membership ambassador who “wasn’t ready to hang up his trowel” or a radiographer dealing with daily flooded troughs, human stories make complex ideas understandable and memorable.
For suppliers and retailers planning ranges for the next few seasons, there is a real opportunity to champion this kind of grounded innovation: products that are born from genuine frustration, engineered with care and backed by honest sustainability.
At WrightObara, this is the space we love working in: helping home and garden brands shape the strategy, visuals and storytelling that connect these ideas with the people who will benefit from them most.
If Seal Stop and GIMA’s Seed Corn Fund have sparked thoughts about how your own innovation pipeline shows up – at Glee, in-store or online – it might be time to start that conversation.
Check out the full episode of The Underground Podcast, featuring Tony Kersey, Membership Ambassador at GIMA and Belle Richardson, inventor and founder of Seal Stop), below: