When Lauren Kirchner, president of Spring Creek Growers, surveys the greenhouses full of plants or the delivery trucks leaving the South Texas facility, she sees much more than just carts full of merchandise. She sees a creation that “enriches people’s lives.”
Spring Creek Growers operates just shy of 52 weeks a year, shipping annuals (their biggest crop), herbs, vegetable starters, garden mums, poinsettias and some perennials. Their biggest customer is H-E-B, a rapidly expanding Texas-based grocery chain, followed closely by SiteOne Landscape Supply.
“When I say we’re enriching and changing people’s lives, there’s so much involved in that idea,” Lauren explains. “Some of it is from the customers who walk into an H-E-B store and find a fun, inspirational product they can plant, eat or use as decoration. It’s also the way our products set the tone for a place of residence, whether that’s an individual home or a multifamily setting. When a commercial landscaper walks into a distributor like SiteOne, the products we’re growing can create the overall vibe for a home or a neighborhood. The plants we’re shipping out of our facility are creating a nice space for someone. They’re impactful.”
Lauren’s dad and Spring Creek founder, Bob Jones, initially forged the relationship with H-E-B, and Lauren has enjoyed reinforcing that partnership. The grocer is big on promoting local suppliers throughout its stores, and Spring Creek tags and signs overflow with that locally grown message. Lauren and her team write all their own tag copy and create the signage on the H-E-B carts. The design and the message have to meet certain criteria: It has to be fun, creative and positive, and it has to be accessible. That last objective is vital because marketing and product development are no longer focused on appealing to only women.
“We now need to appeal to a wider audience. Yes, a woman around my age and demographic is still considered a sweet spot — at least in terms of the propensity to make a purchase — but now we have more men as primary buyers of green industry products,” she adds. “And the younger generations are really interested in growing and harvesting their own food. I’m always thinking about motivating factors during a shopping experience.”
Some of the brands Spring Creek has introduced at H-E-B include Groovy Flower Power, a line of plants designed for easy and fun mixed containers; Bloom Republic – A Texas Collection, which includes heat-loving annuals and perennials; and Green Street Botanicals, a line of easy-care indoor/outdoor plants.
Spring Creek’s latest program at H-E-B came from her brother Evan Jones’ hobby and some family entertainment.
“A few years ago, my brother started a hobby vineyard growing Blanc du Bois grapes, and we started a family harvest tradition. Every year, we wake up at 5 a.m., get kolaches and harvest the grapes. It has to be done really quickly before sunrise, because that’s when the sugar content of the grape changes,” she says.
And for the first time this year, the greenhouse is selling Blanc du Bois grapes in a 3-gallon pot with a trellis in H-E-B stores complete with the Texas Roots tagline.
“It’s very special to us, and that’s the kind of storytelling H-E-B fosters,” she adds.
(L-R) Melissa McCoury, Evan Jones, Lauren Kirchner, Kailey Swanberg and Miguel Esquivel make up part of the management team. Jones and Kirchner are siblings and recently took over the business from their parents.
New visions
The past 12 to 18 months have marked a pivotal point for Spring Creek Growers. Lauren and Evan’s parents, Bob and Carla Jones, just retired. The succession plan was developed about two years ago. Lauren is president and Evan is chief of operations, and the siblings now own a part of the business. Bob founded the greenhouse in 2004, the year Lauren left to attend Baylor University. The siblings didn’t grow up in the greenhouse business. However, their family owns a Christmas tree farm that’s been in her mom’s family for many years. But Evan wanted to return to the family business, while Lauren was more interested in corporate America, a path she found was not meant for her.
“Mine and Evan’s relationship very much complements the business,” she says.
It took about a year to figure out what everybody wanted in the succession plan, which she says was a challenging process.
“Besides the family dynamic, you have to think about as an individual and ask, ‘What do I want? What do I want for my spouse? What do I want for our children? What do we want the future to look like?’ We’re going to be different people in 15 years, so that was a challenge.
“It took a lot of deep, reflective thought, and things didn’t start coming together until about a year ago. But we’re very secure in the plan we’ve laid out.”
The family took a decompression time of sorts before making a formal announcement.
“We knew that with a formal announcement would come questions, and we wanted to be prepared to answer those questions. We owed it to our employees — and to everybody who has faith in us — full transparency,” she says.
Lauren and Evan also took that time to analyze how their roles would change and how to build their individualized teams.
“Overall, it’s been really positive, and it feels very natural for the company in terms of evolving,” she adds. “It’s pivotal, too, for our management team, who’ve been here 10-plus years. We’re basically all in our early- to mid-thirties, and we’ve come into these senior roles. Actually, we’ve grown into them.”
One of Lauren’s key goals is to become an employer of choice.
“It’s so important, especially after the tremendous growth we’ve experienced in the last five years,” she says. “We’ve done a good job of doing more with less human capital, and now we’re busting at the seams from a square footage perspective and from a time availability and time management perspective.”
Evan and Lauren are exploring how to use technology to become more efficient, as well as the scope of work.
“We’re analyzing — especially during springtime — a work-life balance and how can we get better at becoming an employer of choice,” she says. “There’s such deep personal reflection in everything that we do.”
Kelli Rodda is editorial director of Greenhouse Management magazine. Contact her at krodda@gie.net.
