From a small club to Landgard | | It has been a long road to the founding of Landgard eG in 2005 with its operating companies Landgard Blumen und Pflanzen GmbH (based in Straelen-Herongen) and Landgard Obst & Gemüse GmbH & Co. KG (based in Bornheim-Roisdorf). | | It was not due to the weather or the large area under cultivation on the lower Rhine, but the railway in 1863 that enabled market gardeners to create the subsequent boom in the horticultural industry, as they were now able to ship perishable merchandise quickly. All that was missing was the concept of centralised marketing. In 1910 Hans Tenhaeff had the idea of employing modern production and marketing systems similar to those in heavy industry.
Thus, in 1914 the first auction of fruit and vegetables was held in Straelen. In 1924 the producer cooperative based in Straelen built a dispatch centre in Kevelaer and developed a distribution network for the entire territory of the Weimar Republic. The marketing of fruit and vegetables was up and running. | | The azalea growers chose to go their own way. In 1950, 20 young market gardeners in Kevelaer founded the Azalerika Flower Marketing Society. The growing expertise of German market gardeners broke the monopoly of the Belgian growers, who had dominated the German azalea market almost exclusively until then. From this initiative the flourishing cultivation of azaleas and ericas arose. | | While the growers? auctions in Straelen and Kevelaer continued to develop, some tough competition appeared in the Düsseldorf area in 1953 with the founding of the Lower Rhine Flower Marketing Association (NBV). The NBV took over a former cattle yard in Neuss where it auctioned cut flowers. | | In 1974 the Straelen growers? auction merged with the Azalerika in Kevelaer and the growers? cooperative in Wesel to create the Union of Horticultural Markets (UGA). Thus was born the marketing conglomerate with three capital letters - the UGA, which now became one powerful service provider for thousands of market gardeners on the lower Rhine. | | In return the Horticultural Marketing Society (GVG) was created in 1981 and based in Lüllingen. Five years later the GVG took up residence in a new complex where an auction clock for pot plants ran for the first time in 1990.
Like the NBV, the GVG also expanded from the lower Rhine into the new German territories following reunification in 1990. In 1992 the GVG was taken over by the NBV and marketing was conducted under a single name. | | In 1995 the NBV opened a new central marketing facility for pot plants in Lülllingen, while the UGA started operating a new indoor complex in Kevelaer the same year. In the autumn of 1997 the NBV and UGA established their initial rapprochement by founding a joint subsidiary for the marketing of pot plants and cut flowers as well as fruit and vegetables. The two parent companies, which each have a 50% stake in the subsidiary, were supposed to remain independent. However, in 1998 a merger was announced and a new company created, NBV + UGA Handels-GmbH based in Straelen. | | But this was still not enough to keep up with the economic demands of the time, and more growth was to follow:
NBV+UGA, Centralmarkt Rheinland (2004), Nordwest-Blumen Wiesmoor and fleurfrisch Stuttgart amalgamated to become the N.U.C. cooperative, which is today known as Landgard eG. With 2,000 employees, more than 4,000 suppliers and more than 25,000 customers the operating subsidiaries generate a total revenue above 1,2 billion Euros. |
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