 Cherry Lake stands apart from much of the competition in Florida because of its size. Timothee Sallin's parents, Michel and Veronique, planted a seed when they started Cherry Lake Tree Farm, both figuratively and literally. What started out as a small citrus grove on 10 acres is today more than 2,000 acres and one of the largest tree farms in the Southeast.
Cherry Lake stands apart from much of the competition in Florida because of its size, and that's even more impressive when you consider that the state is second only to California in terms of the nursery and landscape industry, according to the Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association (FNGLA). Tree farms and other nursery and landscape operations are a $3 billion industry in Florida, and Cherry Lake is a major player.
"We are among the largest tree farms in the Southeast," Sallin says. "The majority of the industry is highly fragmented, and is composed of a lot of smaller growers. We definitely stand out as a giant in the business in that sense."
What keeps Cherry Lake on top of the market, Sallin says, is the financial acumen his parents brought to the operation, the variety and quality of its products and its approach to sales and marketing. In an industry that can be very conservative and traditional, Sallin says Cherry Lake strives to innovate in nearly every aspect of the business.
Surviving the Freeze
The origins of what would eventually become Cherry Lake started about 30 years ago, when Sallin's parents settled in Florida. "They came to the U.S. from France in the late '70s," he says. "They weren't expecting to stay for more than a couple of years, but they fell in love with the culture and decided to invest in citrus, along with some of our relatives in France."
Sallin's parents bought citrus groves in Florida to export fresh fruit to Europe, but soon learned their first harsh lesson in agriculture. "There were very severe freezes in Florida in 1983 and then again in 1985, and these freezes were devastating for the citrus economy," Sallin says.
The family's trees were completely wiped out by the freezes, forcing them to start over. "What they had left was the land where the trees once were," Sallin says. "They were very near bankruptcy and they were looking for ways to rebuild, restart and use the land resources in a productive way."
Using their background in finance, Sallin's parents took a new approach to the business. "After suffering the freezes, they realized that agriculture was a very high-risk business, and they needed to be diversified to effectively manage risk," he says.
In December of 1985 they began planting and growing ornamental trees on ten acres of old citrus land. Today, Cherry Lake Tree Farm is over 1,300 acres and grows 40 different varieties of trees in 15 different sizes. "We produce a broad variety of products and offer a depth of inventory that is unique in our industry," Sallin says.
Strong Roots
"One of the challenges is to maintain our leadership position in the market," Sallin says. "We are constantly seeking to innovate." He adds that the company aims to grow between 20 and 25 percent each year.
One method Cherry Lake uses to improve its competitive position is through developing quality root systems in all of its trees. "We've done that by incorporating unique production practices, the cornerstone of which is an Air-Pot container," Sallin says. The Superoots Air-Pot is designed with inward pointing cones that direct the root towards a hole in the outward pointing cones where the root tip is air-pruned. The response of the plant to this air-pruning is to send out more roots to compensate for the loss, which leads to the build up of a dense and fibrous root system. The root system of a tree is one of its most important aspects, but tends to be ignored by buyers. "People don't see the root system, it's in the ground or in the pot, it's hidden from view and people tend to make decisions about quality based on the trunk and the canopy," Sallin says. "We spend a lot of time and energy educating decision makers on the importance of healthy root systems and the long term value of high performing trees in the landscape."
Direct Marketing
Cherry Lake takes a unique approach to promotion. Although the company still engages in the traditional forms of marketing, it also takes a step not many others in the nursery industry take. "We have the most sophisticated approach to marketing in the industry, which goes well beyond the Web sites, tradeshows, brochures and what-not," Sallin says. "We market by going directly to the end-user. This includes a lot of continuing education programs, special event marketing, aggressive business development and strategic partnerships."
Rather than sitting back and allowing intermediaries like landscape contractors or brokers deal with end-users, Cherry Lake prefers to approach those customers directly and work in tandem with contractors. Sallin says this gives property owners and land developers more control because they can see the products at the source.
"They like to be able to control the quality of the products," Sallin says. "When you work through the landscape contractor, it can be difficult to know exactly what you are going to get and what the specifications of the product are. The end-user likes to know where the trees are coming from and they like to know that they are dealing with a professional vendor."
This atypical approach to selling trees means Cherry Lake has to provide a lot of the services and convenience that the end user is used to "The challenge with working with end-users is they need a turn-key solution and they need to simplify the purchasing process, which is why they usually go though the intermediaries," Sallin says.
Gradual Changes
Even though the industry has been known to be conservative, Sallin says, certain events are forcing it to change. For example, some major new players are beginning to move into the arena. "The industry is maturing and we're seeing large institutional players entering the industry, people like Home Depot and John Deere," Sallin says.
The enormity of the Florida nursery market is also beginning to attract interest from Wall Street investors, and their siren song is becoming hard for smaller farms to resist. "I think some of these players are seeing the potential to consolidate and take a position in the industry," Sallin adds. "The change that we're seeing slowly happening is the trend toward consolidation."
In the face of growing competition, Cherry Lake is looking to the same strategy that helped it survive the freezes of the 1980s: diversification. The company already has a citrus company and landscape construction firm within its ranks, but Sallin says there's more in store. Cherry Lake recently started a 600-acre palm farm and added a brokerage division. Palms make up 7 percent of Florida's total nursery sales, according to the FNGLA.
Other tree farms might be taken aback by the changes taking place in the industry, but Sallin says his father prepared him and the company long ago. "What he said to me is that the industry, although it is young and fragmented and resistant to change, it's going to change," he says. |
