‘Stronger Together’ at the Greenlife Industry Conference

By Emily Rice

The ‘Stronger Together’ Greenlife Industry National Conference was recently held in Brisbane, Australia. Hort Journal was the event’s media partner.

The first national conference in five years brought together retailers, production nurseries, allied trades, and horticultural and education services to explore the latest in tech, industry data, marketing, business tools, and more. With 39 speakers across 29 sessions, 16 exhibitors, nursery tours and excursions, and plenty of networking, the conference was a jam-packed, unique experience for the sector.

Around 250 people from across Australia and internationally attended the conference at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre.

Highlights

Sessions and speakers

A range of educational, inspiring and future-focused sessions were held, including:

• ‘AI – what it means for greenlife’ with Julian Moore, renowned AI expert
• ‘A greener future – where the heck are we and where are we headed?’ with Simon Kuestenmacher, Director of Research at The Demographics Group
• ‘The Good Juice – drive your business forward’ with ACIL Allen’s JP van Moort, diving into greenlife industry insights
• ‘Greener Spaces Better Places (GSBP) – Understanding the nursery category to drive demand’ with GSBP’s Belinda Bean and Hort Innovation’s Elyse Allum and Holly Jackson
• ‘Horticultural Olympics’ with AIPH’s Treve Evans and the founder of ‘friends + friends AG’ CEO, Sven Stimac

Tours

We were thrilled to run two sold-out tours (north and south of Brisbane), exploring nurseries, manufacturing and research sites, and horticultural product makers.

Businesses we visited were:

• Marlborough Nursery – an expansive production nursery supplying the retail trade with large volumes of high-quality containerised indoor flowering and foliage plants
• Rocky Point – designing custom growing media for individual growers’ specific requirements
• Digga – Australia’s largest manufacturer of planetary gearboxes and machinery attachments
• Quality Plastic Products – supplying nursery products made from recycled materials to Australian greenlife growers
• Dracaena Farm Nursery – 3.5-acre nursery combining shaded growing areas with hail-guard zones for sun-loving succulents
• Redlands Research Facility – generating breakthroughs and cutting-edge practices in Australian agriculture
• ARMHub – agile robotics, AI and design for manufacture industry hub
• The Plant Shack – award-winning retail nursery

Life member awards

Two new life memberships were awarded at the Gourmet Greenlife Grill Gala Dinner.

GIA CEO Joanna Cave said “Life membership is rare, and its recipients are deeply considered. To illustrate this, only 11 recipients have been awarded in GIA’s over 80 year history, and none since 2020. We are thrilled to offer life membership to two new, most worthy industry members.”

The two new recipients were Carole Fudge and Mike Mehigan. Carole has been involved in the nursery industry for over 40 years and is currently the Sales and Marketing Manager at Benara Nurseries in Perth, Western Australia. Mike has been a passionate industry advocate for the nursery and garden industry since 2001 and is a respected industry leader. He has also recently joined the Nursery and Garden Industry New South Wales & Australian Capital Territory as its new CEO.

The first national greenlife conference since 2020 proved a fantastic opportunity for industry to reconnect, explore our history and connectedness, and look forward to the future.

The conference was made possible by the support of our generous sponsors and exhibitors: Fernland, Quality Plastic Products, Next Gen Group, Nationwide Trees, ICL, Grange Growing Solutions, Yates Hort & Ag, Garden City Plastics, Syngenta, Powerplants, Ball Australia, Envu, GS1 Australia, Evergreen Connect, Moshie, Innovative Tags, Landscapers Associations, Apex Greenhouses, Norwood Industries, EnviroTec Structures, Heiniger Australia, Queensland Rural and Industry Development Authority, Oztech Drones and Hort Journal Australia. It was also made possible due to the generous levy-funded support provided by Hort Innovation. We’d also like to thank Blue Sky Nursery for kindly providing plants for the event.

Emily Rice

Communications Coordinator

M: 0499427015

E: Emily.rice@greenlifeindustry.com.au

All images supplied by Greenlife Industry Australia