Grazers Ltd is a family business, owned by Jonathan and Sally Tebb Roger, based in the county of Cumbria, UK. The company has its manufacturing site near the town of Penrith, on the edge of the Lake District.
Grazers actively seeks to employ most of their dedicated staff from the local area, as well as drawing input from similar-minded small companies with relevant professional expertise.
The company ethos (see below) has always been to put environmental priorities first, even if that has been a limiting factor in company growth.
Further Information
Grazers : History
The origins of Grazers was a serendipitous discovery in 1999 by James Over and Nina Tidswell while treating a Yorkshire farmer’s crop with trace elements. The treated crop was on the edge of a wood which normally had extensive rabbit damage. After application, the farmer realised the crop damage was recovering rapidly, even though the rabbits were still present. After more research, with several agricultural and horticultural trials later, Grazers took off and customers endorsed the findings.
Jonathan Tebb Roger is from a horticultural and agricultural background and worked with Jim and Nina on the Grazers trials since the outset. When Jim and Nina’s decided to retire in 2006, Jonathan and his wife Sally bought the company, then continued to manufacture and supply Grazers, expanding the business year on year and now providing 4 product variations, against a wider range of crop herbivores.
Grazers : Future
With the four existing Grazers products steadily growing in popularity, the company’s current ambition is to ensure these are increasingly available to more gardeners, plant producers, and farmers. We are seeking to widen the distribution of these novel products, prior to widening the range further, by assisting garden centres and other distributors to convey the naturally positive environmental messages.
Meanwhile, Grazers is also taking on new ideas from its working partners, such as expanding its GroGreen range of plant enhancers, currently assisting Roses and Buxus, with new products expected to be added to ranges soon.
Grazers is also gaining increasing interest from several overseas markets, especially in soft fruit production against bird damage and in row crops against rabbit damage. In response to this demand Grazers is planning to create a new ‘Grazers Global’ website to meet the international demand for products in agriculture and horticulture.
At all times, one of the top priorities for Grazers will be its adherence to company ethos and environmental policies central to all business operations …
Company Ethos
From the outset, Grazers has always had an ethos of inclusivity, not just to people and their communities, but to all types of plants and all living creatures. The company sought to provide any type of grower with a product range that was totally safe to nature, not just to humans, their crops and their pets, but to all wildlife in all its aspects.
Importantly this wildlife needs to include the very pests that the products are seeking to keep away from the plants, as they can still play an important role in the natural existing food chains.
So, by applying the Grazers products we are in effect ‘helping our plants to help themselves’, giving them the strength to flourish. At the same time, we are also leaving their pests healthy for consumption by their own natural predators, such as birds, hedgehogs and amphibians. In turn, the safer environment attracts more wildlife to the area, which will eat yet more pests.
Plastic Policy
Grazers manufactures an eco-friendly product range for plant growers.
We also take a strongly proactive approach to all environmental aspects of production and supply, ensuring we reduce our plastic and carbon footprint wherever possible.
Amongst other components of the manufacturing and supply processes, we ensure that Grazers follows a robust policy on plastic usage, with our core garden range of products using 100% recycled plastic…
The whole range of Grazers products are supplied in both recyclable and recycled plastic containers:
Recyclable High Density Polyethylene
Post Consumer Recycled resin
Using PCR resin, a HDPE plastic is used for all product containers which can either be washed out and re-used, or readily recycled with other commonly recycled items, such as milk containers.
Grazers promotes its bottles of concentrate in the market, over and above the diluted RTU hand sprayers, so customers can either refill the Grazers RTU or make use of their own spray containers.
These bottles of concentrate are not only the most cost effective for our customers but also use far less plastic per unit of product and also require less packaging and fuel to transport.
Spray triggers in the Grazers Ready-to-Use (RTU) bottles are manufactured to a high specification, enabling the most efficient use of product (including upside down) and re-usable numerous times
No plastic bubble wrap or plastic cushioning is used to ship Grazers products to our customers, only recycled paper and cardboard cartons, which are all recyclable again.
Grazers recycles its own plastic waste eg pallet wrap, containers, sacks etc via a local farm waste plastic recycling company Solway Recycling: https://www.solwayrecycling.co.uk/
Unless exceptional circumstances, plastic containers and product packaging is sourced from the most local suppliers to Grazers’ production site.
Grazers is currently looking into a plastics recycling scheme to encourage users not to discard their old, re-usable plastic containers from Grazers and instead return them into a circular economy.
Finally, Grazers is always striving to do more to improve the environment in its range of products and its manufacturing processes, so we always welcome further ideas and feedback. Contact us.