Woods of Berkhamsted garden centre featured prominently on national TV last month as their fight against Waitrose next door rages on.
The popular garden centre, which says it is facing an existential threat because of neighbouring Waitrose’s stand-alone garden centre, was featured on Joe Lycett’s Got Your Back on Channel 4 late last month.
The consumer comedy show, which highlights serious issues in a light-hearted fashion, called on comedian Katherine Ryan (pictured) to help Woods gain more traction for their Change.org petition, which asks the public to help defend the independent garden centre against Waitrose.
In the episode, which is the seventh in Got Your Back’s second season, Katherine humorously pitches different ideas to the Woods team about how they can get people’s attention.
Her first idea was to burn down the opposition’s garden centre, her second was to convince people that ‘flowers are murder’, and her third, which was agreed upon, was to host a party at Woods where they could get people to sign the petition.
Katherine then used several quirky techniques to draw people in – from standing outside Waitrose and telling people about the party, to making a ‘sexy rebrand’ video to convince people to join the movement.
A spokesman for Waitrose has previously commented on the situation, saying: “The garden centre (Woods) has a fantastic range of gardening products – far wider than ours – and offers gardening expertise we don’t. We’ve been selling a modest range of garden plants for six years after a consultation with our neighbours and reduced our range of garden products several months ago after conversations with the owners.”
The episode is still available on Channel 4 On Demand.
Thousands of people have already signed the petition; to see it, go to change.org/p/woods-of-berkhamsted-stop-closure-of-independent-garden-centre-threatened-by-waitrose-supermarket
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