Case Study: Management

E. Krieger Greenhouses in Boone, Iowa, was looking for a better way to ship its plants. The 11-acre greenhouse operation had been using rolling racks to ship its annuals, poinsettias and garden mums.
Co-owner and sales manager Andy Krieger said his retail customers didn’t like having to deal with shipping racks.

“Handling the racks was a headache for many of our customers,” Krieger said. “Dealing with the racks was also a problem for us, too.”

Building a better shipper
The limitations caused by shipping racks led Krieger Greenhouses to design the GreenWay Plant Shipper. The 40-by-48-inch shipping system is made of water–repellent, 100 percent recyclable cardboard. The one-way shipper was designed for use with flats, packs and pots up to 2-gallon containers. The shipper has standard shelf spacing of 6, 9 and 17 inches, but the shelves can be adjusted. Custom shelf heights are available to handle young plant starter plugs and liners. A retail-ready display shipper has also been developed.

Changing customer base
Prior to developing and using the shipper, Krieger Greenhouses delivered most of its product store direct. Now most of the company’s product goes through distribution centers.

“The shipper has allowed us to change our business model,” Krieger said. “It’s literally just-in-time inventory.”

Krieger Greenhouses used to produce primarily annual bedding plants. That has changed since it started using the shippers.

“We used to ship 70,000-80,000 1-gallon fall garden mums,” Krieger said. “Last year we produced just under 600,000 mums. The shippers enabled us to expand from 20 stores to all of the stores of one chain.”

Orders can be customized to meet the needs of individual stores.

“We can mark the side of the shippers with a store number so that when the shippers arrive at the distribution centers, they know which stores are supposed to receive which plants. That way each store can receive exactly what it wants.”

For more: E. Krieger Greenhouses Inc., www.kriegergreenhouses.com; www.greenwayshipper.com.

Did you know?
Improvements to the greenhouse industry run in the Krieger family. In 1972, Ernest L. Krieger was the first person to design an automated transplanting line for the greenhouse industry. Ernest Krieger also built one of the first automatic flat and pot fillers in the United States. The Krieger Soil Screener, which was invented by George Krieger, Ernest’s father, was commercially introduced in the 1950s.