Tuning In To Today’s Consumers

Are younger consumers interested in growing food or flowers more these days? Gayla Trail, founder of You Grow Girl, says there’s a cultural shift occurring in class – and that growing food is no longer a lower-class stigma.

“The produce itself is beautiful, and people are working them into their trends,” she says.

Still growing food might scare off average consumers because they assume it’s as time consuming as their full-time jobs. That scenario is not necessarily the case, Organic Gardening Editor-In-Chief Scott Meyers says, and it’s the industry’s job not to shy away from those consumers, but to convince them that growing food – and general gardening – can be an experience that offers big rewards in much less time.

“Time stress is the No. 1 inhibitor to gardening,” Meyer says. “People are interested, and it’s our job to show them what they can do in a short period of time.”