Summary
¦ Joe Swift opened Jackson Fencing’s show gardens in May.
¦ The company carries around £4.5m of stock and turns over around £22m.
¦ Strongest growth is being seen at the premium end of the market.
¦ All the timber used is FSC or PEFC certified.

Residents of mid-Kent were saved the journey up to London to see the Chelsea Flower Show in May – they had a mini-version of the event, complete with a celebrity TV gardener, right on their doorstep.

Just a week before the flagship Royal Horticultural Society show opened its doors, Joe Swift was at Jacksons Fencing, in Stowting Common, near Ashford, officially opening four designer show gardens. The gardens were the result of a national design competition devised by Jacksons’ marketing manager Louise Tomlin. The brief was to design an environmentally-friendly and sustainable garden, using Jacksons’ products and the response – some 150 entries – took the company by surprise.

“We were really impressed by the level of creativity and innovative thinking demonstrated by all the designers who took part in the challenge,” said Ms Tomlin. “We even received entries from as far afield as Holland and Germany.”

Joe Swift was equally complimentary: “Each of the designers has done a superb job in creating a show garden which exudes designer flair combined with practical functionality,” he said to the press on the day. “Most of the public won’t go to a flower show, so this will give them ideas they can take away.”

And unlike its Chelsea counterpart, where all the show gardens are dismantled after their week of exposure, Jacksons’ are still on display at the company’s retail centre, Jakstore, improving with age and providing inspiration for customers.

Busy year

The design competition has been just one element in an extremely busy year for the family-run company, which began life in 1947 as a manufacturer and supplier of agricultural and equestrian products. It’s still very strong in those sectors, but residential and niche markets – acoustic fences and gates for example – now account for significant levels of trade. The company manufactures both timber and steel products, with business divided equally between them.

Around £4.5m of timber products are currently held in stock (metal products are made to order) and turnover is £22m, although the past eight weeks have been “exceptionally good and if it carries on like that it will be substantially more than £22m”, said chairman and chief executive Richard Jackson.

He concedes this may be due in part to government departments, for whom some of his fencing contractor customers work, spending money before their budgets get clawed back, but says that’s not the whole reason as around 80% of sales are made direct to the end user, while fencing contractors account for 20%.

Of the latter group, several exclusively use Jacksons’ products, effectively working as agents although the only official agents the company operates through are on the Channel Islands.

The bulk of manufacturing of both timber and steel takes place at the 20-acre Stowting Common site, although some primary machining is carried out at a second manufacturing site in Chilcompton, near Bath, which also produces a few specific ranges. There is also a sales outlet at Chester.

While manufacturing is concentrated in the south of the country, sales and distribution are both nationwide and international. A new online sales service has proved a big hit: “It seemed impossible when we first thought about it, but we’ve doubled the web sales in the last year and had phenomenal growth in the last couple of months,” said Ms Tomlin.

Export markets

Around 8% of timber and steel production is exported – and to some pretty far-flung places, including Australia. Twelve containers were recently despatched to Nigeria and a customer in Kazakhstan has been on the books for 20 years.

Deliveries in the UK are courtesy of Jacksons’ own 13-strong fleet of lorries, 12 of which carry fork lifts. This self-sufficiency, said Mr Jackson, is central to the company’s business philosophy. “I like to have the whole process as part of the Jacksons function and have our destiny in our own hands.”

In line with that view, timber – which has achieved FSC or PEFC certification – is bought direct from source by the company’s Steve Coleman. Scandinavian and North and South American timber is in the mix, but the majority – 70-80% – is European and of that at least a third is home-grown, some from as close as Hampshire.

Raw material selection is crucial for the company; quality and service are far more important criteria than getting the cheapest price and while local sourcing is preferable, it’s seen as a bonus rather than a prerequisite.

“Sourcing is driven more by relationships [with suppliers] than cost or location,” said Mr Jackson. “We’ve worked with a sawmill in Hampshire for 15 years and they understand the quality we want and will select logs just for our production. It’s very much a partnership and it’s fortuitous that they are close by.”

The Jakcure Process

Building relationships like this helps ensure Jacksons selects “the right species and the right section for the job”, which is an integral part of its “Jakcure Process”, a system unique to Jacksons which takes a cradle to grave approach to timber treatment and which enables it to offer a 25-year guarantee.

“For example, home-grown Corsican pine heartwood will resist treatment, so we make sure the heartwood percentage is very small and as close to the centre as possible so we get the preservative where we want it,” said Mr Jackson. “We use southern yellow pine or radiata pine for our Jakposts [fence posts] because they are permeable and there is no problem with heartwood – but you pay a premium for it.”

Timber is bought in kiln dried, or is kiln dried to below 28% on site before being machined and then pressure treated in one of three autoclaves.

“Jakcure Process starts with the timber selection and finishes with the treatment plant and includes all the steps in between,” said Mr Jackson, adding that as much of the manufacturing and assembly as possible is carried out before treatment, to ensure no exposed cut ends.

He sees this holistic approach as vital and is concerned that some timber treaters don’t operate to his own high standards.

“To look at any of the areas [in timber preservation] in isolation is like having a jigsaw with a piece missing,” said Mr Jackson. “I would love to see an accreditation scheme for timber treaters so that everyone will be able to tell if a piece of wood has been treated properly – because you can’t tell just by looking at it.”

What you can tell just by looking is that Jacksons’ products are targeted at the top end of the market – and, said Mr Jackson, it’s a sector that is performing well.

“Growth at the bottom end of the range, the feather-edge and so on, has been minimal,” he said. “All the growth has been at the premium end, demonstrating that customers are thinking more about quality and coming around to the idea of lifetime costs.”

New ranges

Products such as pergola systems, furniture and decking and balustrades from the company’s “Secret Garden Collection” have been selling strongly this year, while sales of relative newcomers to the fence panel portfolio, the Venetian and the Chilham, have exceeded expectations. The former features spacing between the horizontal pales, allowing light through, while the latter is “good both sides” – it has no rails on view so the owner doesn’t have to worry about garden fence etiquette where the neighbours are concerned.

Jacksons is also renowned for its gates, both agricultural and residential, with its courtyard gates in particular drawing on its timber and steel expertise. The tongue and groove panels incorporate a galvanised steel frame to eliminate twisting and warping. This added rigidity also gives them the strength to withstand automation.

The idea of sandwiching a metal frame between the panels resulted from “a brainstorming session” and employees are encouraged to air their ideas for new products. The decking kits were a suggestion from Derek Burr, a member of the sales team, while another bestseller, Jakwall, a grooved brick-effect landscape timber system, was inspired by Danny Daniel, who is in charge of timber production.

Jakwall is ideal for constructing raised beds or retaining walls where its light weight means it doesn’t need deep foundations.

Jacksons’ customers, some of whose projects are featured in the company’s brochure and website, also inspire product development.

Many of Jacksons’ products are bespoke and because the company employs fencing managers who carry out site visits throughout the country, and it operates an “expert installer” scheme, it’s possible to tap into customers’ aspirations first hand.

“We’ll look at all the ideas that we’ve been asked for as specials and see if we can commercialise them,” said Mr Jackson. “So rather than coming up with ideas from the ivory tower, we’re listening to what the customers are asking for.”

And, along with inspiration provided by the customers, those four show gardens should be just the thing to get the creative juices flowing.

? Jacksons Fencing is hosting a Designers’ Day and Best of Kent event on October 16, from 10am-4pm.