Åsa Lindholm, Strategic Manager and In-store Consumer Experience & Communication at Coop Sweden

As part of its growth strategy Kekkilä-BVB expands its business to the horticultural market in China in full scale. Kekkilä-BVB’s brands, Kekkilä Professional and BVB Substrates are already having a strong foothold in the Chinese market. Sustainability is at the core of Kekkilä-BVB’s business and supporting China’s high ambitions in sustainability developments. Water is a rare and expensive resource in China. Kekkilä-BVB’s substrates that lower water usage and require less fertilisers will bring savings for growers and enable more efficient use of these important resources. Kekkilä-BVB’s new office is located in the famous port city of Qingdao in Shandong province.

By definition, soil health means the continued capacity of soil to function as a living ecosystem - a viable community of organisms that sustains plants, animals and humans. From a gardener's point of view this would mean a substrate that sustains healthy and flourishing plants with minimal input like fertilization, raking and weeding. Soil is a natural habitat for numerous micro-organisms - most of which live in air and water pores among the solid mineral and organic particles, and most of which are beneficial for the soil and plant health, although numerous forms of pathogenic soil micro-organisms also exist. Soil micro-organisms include different species of bacteria, fungi, protozoa and nematodes, of which the beneficial ones stabilize the soil and they help the water and nutrient cycling, for example by decomposing organic matter. Along with bigger organisms - worms, arthropods, birds and mammals they form the soil food web. A healthy soil food web maintains itself and recycles nutrients and materials effectively.

Despite the heavy snowfall in the winter, all production plants of Kekkilä-BVB, Europe's leading growing medium manufacturer, have built up larger stocks during the first half of the year for the spring demand peak. In Central Europe, professional growers and home gardeners have already started cultivating. During the pandemic, people have been spending more time in the nature in their spare time, which increases the need for green spaces in urban environments. This is expected to have a positive effect also on the demand for Kekkilä-BVB's landscaping business.