THERE is one sector of the retailing world where family businesses still loom large.

That is the garden centre business, where somehow national brands have not succeeded in dominating the independents.

Julian Winfield, chief executive of Ferndown-based Haskins Garden Centres, recently became chairman of the Garden Centre Association.

“A lot of garden centres are owned by families, although there are some bigger groups,” he says.

“The Garden Centre Association has been going for 50 years and we’ve got about 80 members across the country.

“We’ve been members for a long time but one of the benefits is that we’ve all learned from each other, grown up together and stimulated each other.

“Our main competitor to our site here is Stewarts but over the years we’ve been friendly to Stewarts and known them through the association.”

The reason family businesses continue to succeed is that they are able to take a longer view than the companies focused on year-on-year targets, he says.

“I’ve been in the business 23 years and there are a lot of staff here who have been here a long time,” he says.

“In terms of making investments, it’s perhaps that being family owned businesses, we tend to take a longer term view.”

Without a longer-term view, Haskins would not have invested in the restaurants which are a huge part of its business, he says. “Our restaurants are very busy. They’re over 20 per cent of our turnover and they help us when the weather’s not as good,” he adds.

Haskins has four garden centres – at Ferndown, Southampton Snowhill and Roundstone, the latter two in West Sussex. It is looking for a fifth site.

It employs 600 people, including 205 at its garden centre and headquarters in Ferndown, and is a £31million business.

The name Haskins has been connected with horticulture since 1882, when Harry Haskins founded a nursery in Poole. His great-grandson Warren Haskins took over the nursery business when he was 20, following the death of his father.

In those days, the business employed seven people, but Warren Haskins opened a retail shop which grew into the garden centre business. He remains non-executive chairman.

The business has been at its 10-acre site at Longham, Ferndown, since 1994, and gave it an extensive refurbishment in 2008.

“We’d like to find a couple more sites. We’re looking at sites within three hours of Bournemouth. We’ve been looking for a few years without success but we’re determined what when we do it will be right for us. There’s no pressure to do it,” says Mr Winfield.

“It’s a complex business where you’ve got to push forward in as many different areas as you can in terms of developing property and expanding the business, making sure it’s efficient as well as having a good culture where people feel they can thrive.

“Our family ownership is important to us, our family values, the quality of our product, our people, which is not just our staff but our customers, making sure we’re listening to and trying to help them as much as possible – and having the sustainability in business, ensuring we look after the environment as much as we can and making sure we’re able to invest in our customer experience.”