November 17, 2021 - Turf Matters

Ransomes focuses on value: The world’s first mower manufacturer, Ransomes, is cutting a path to electric-powered commercial and municipal mowing under the Any Less Costs More campaign and its largest brand investment this century.

Ransomes’ new mission and vision are focused on providing short-term and long-term benefits to customers, consumers and the environment. The digital investment, unabated by covid, comes through a new web presence, which will provide an industry leading digital offering, whilst on the turf, the target of electric lithium powered commercial mowing has been firmly set for launch in 2022.

Ransomes focuses on value

For everyone involved in the process, including Ransomes Marketing Manager, Adam Underwood, this has been an opportunity to speak to customers about what matters most to them and deliver value under the Any Less Costs More banner.

Adam explains: “We want people to be confident when they are sat on a Ransomes mower that they are sitting on the benchmark for commercial and municipal mowing. It’s very important for people to understand the value of incredibly specialist machinery, and we certainly are that. So, the Any Less Costs More campaign is really about the lifetime value of our products and how it pays to invest in us. It’s worth investing in the 200 UK-based specialists on-site at our factory, it’s worth investing in UK manufacturing, and it’s worth investing in machinery that is compliant with clean and green power.

“You know exactly where your products are coming from, and you also know that you’re going to get superior support from a dealer network that has sold our products in some cases for half a century or more.

“Getting that message out is important, but listening is even more important. We spent the last year engaging with consumers, dealer customers and colleagues to understand what Ransomes means to them and what great will look like for the next five and ten years for the brand.”

Throughout early 2021 Textron focused all mower manufacturing on Ipswich, and that has created a space where the sole focus is on building fine turf machinery. For Ransomes, this year provided the opportunity for 15 million test hours of lithium battery technology to be integrated into their commercial mower range.

“We’re excited about developing new technologies, and Ransomes will borrow a lot of the expertise from other brands within Textron,” Adam explains.

“As a result, we will be able to safely put technology that will be good for the environment, good for everybody and most importantly, gets the work done into our Ransomes products.

“We’re also celebrating the fact that all of our products are Stage V compliant. We feel those clean, green engines are worth shouting about and are important as we look forward to launching electric lithium technology and implementing it safely into the municipal and commercial market in 2022.

“You’ll see at our shows, events and launches throughout 2022 that we are going to be expanding our range into electric lithium technology, and in other parts of the business, we have already got turf machinery out cutting in environments that are a commercial or municipal setting.”

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Wildflower organisation increases capacity: Leading wildflower organisation, Wildflower Turf Ltd, continues its successful expansion with the recent acquisition of new landholding in Shropshire.

With demand for the company’s products and services at an all-time high, the recently purchased Forge Farm will provide the business with an additional 60,000m² of production capacity.

Wildflower organisation increases capacity

The wildflower specialists currently operate from sites in both Hampshire and Yorkshire, and this third production site will further enable Wildflower Turf Ltd to meet growing demand nationwide.

The Shropshire location is well positioned to deliver wildflower products to Wildflower Turf Ltd’s customer base in the West Midlands and across the rest of the UK.

The new production venue already has the infrastructure in place to commence operations, with the first turf grown at the Forge Farm site expected to be lifted in the summer of 2022.

Production capacity will be increased over time with Forge Farm playing an integral part of Wildflower Turf Ltd’s expansion programme.

James Hewetson-Brown, Founder and Managing Director of Wildflower Turf Ltd, said: “In recent years we have increased our team of passionate experts to support our growth and our expansion to Shropshire is a natural progression. Our acquisition of Forge Farm will ensure we have the increased capacity required and are in a position to respond quickly in response to anticipated business growth.”

He continued, “We are committed to developing and providing innovative and biodiverse wildflower solutions and will continue to announce new initiatives in response to increasing demand for our wildflower products and services.”