Whitco at Glee 2025: Three Innovations Reshaping Garden Centre Hospitality, And Why Spring Is the Perfect Time to Act

With Mother's Day, Easter weekend, and the school holidays fast approaching, garden centres are entering one of their most commercially significant periods of the year. For many, the café and food operation will be under more pressure in the next eight weeks than at almost any other point in the calendar. Getting catering plans right, staffing, menu range, throughput, waste management, isn't just good practice; it's the difference between a peak season that delivers and one that disappoints. 

It's why the innovations Whitco Group showcased at Glee 2025 feel particularly timely. Because the challenges they address, skills shortages, operational costs, sustainability pressures, and rising consumer expectations, don't wait for a quiet moment to bite. They tend to show up precisely when footfall spikes and kitchens are at full stretch. 

 

Spring Peaks Are the Ultimate Stress Test 

Mother's Day alone has become one of the biggest dining-out occasions of the year, with garden centres increasingly well-placed to capitalise on families looking for something a little more relaxed and special than a traditional restaurant. Easter weekend extends that opportunity across four days, and the half-term that follows keeps footfall elevated well into spring. 

Operators who've invested in the right equipment and systems report that these occasions now generate revenue that rivals their strongest summer weekends. But those who haven't thought through their catering infrastructure often find that peak demand exposes every operational weakness, from understaffed kitchens to menus they can't consistently deliver at volume. 

The question worth asking now, before the rush arrives, is: what would genuinely transform how your food operation performs when it matters most? 

 

The Skills Gap: Technology as the Great Equaliser 

Perhaps no challenge weighs more heavily on garden centre food operations than staffing. Finding skilled kitchen staff willing to work in suburban or rural locations, often just for seasonal peaks, has become increasingly difficult. Traditional solutions like higher wages and longer recruitment cycles erode margins without guaranteeing results. 

Whitco's partnership with German manufacturer DEBAG demonstrates a radically different approach. Their commercial baking ovens incorporate artificial intelligence that fundamentally changes who can produce artisan-quality baked goods. Angela Hampton, Whitco UK Brand Leader, made the point strikingly clear: "When I came into Whitco, I made it clear that I am not a chef and I can't cook or bake. However, these ovens are so easy to use - even I can bake pastries that look like they've come fresh from a bakery." 

The technology works through visual learning. Cameras mounted inside the oven observe operators loading products, recognising what's being baked and adjusting cooking parameters accordingly. If an operator loads a half-filled tray into an oven programmed for full capacity, the system alerts them and refuses to proceed until corrected, preventing the kind of costly waste that has plagued previous attempts to deskill professional baking. 

For spring trading, this matters enormously. A Mother's Day menu featuring freshly baked pastries, hot cross buns, or Easter-themed traybakes becomes achievable without specialist pastry chefs. Products go directly from freezer to oven without the 20-minute thaw time traditional equipment requires, keeping throughput high even when covers are stacking up. Energy consumption rivals household ovens despite commercial volumes, and self-cleaning systems remove the labour-intensive daily deep-clean that once consumed staff time. 

Vita Whitaker, representing Whitco Group, summarised the broader significance: "Technology now brings employment to those who are not skilled, providing more jobs whilst meeting consumer demand. We're addressing the skills gap through innovation rather than simply competing for scarce talent." 

 

 

Design Meets Durability: Making Your Space Work Harder Over Easter and Beyond

Spring celebrations tend to blur the line between indoor and outdoor dining in a way that suits garden centres perfectly. A sunny Easter Saturday or warm Mother's Day afternoon shifts footfall outside fast, which means furniture that works in both settings isn't a nice-to-have, it's an operational necessity. 

Whitco's partnership with Turkish manufacturer Tillia, which has designed furniture for over 60 years, addresses this with a solution that also changes how operators think about capital expenditure. Their furniture uses upcycled rice husk combined with polypropylene, creating pieces that resemble wood from a distance but offer superior weather resistance, equally at home in a café interior or on a terrace. 

The single-pricing model is where the economics become particularly interesting. Garden centres pay identical wholesale rates whether purchasing for commercial use or retail inventory. That means the same chairs arranged around café tables for a busy Easter weekend can be merchandised in the homeware department in quieter weeks, with spring and early summer naturally driving consumer interest in outdoor furniture for their own gardens. 

Even modest retail sales, perhaps 20 chairs and 5 tables, can recover 30–40% of the original café investment within a single season. Surplus furniture purchased to accommodate peak summer demand needn't sit idle; it transitions to retail floor stock, maintaining capital efficiency year-round. 

Angela Hampton highlighted the practical appeal: "Particularly in a garden centre setting, you could have the same furniture inside your restaurant and coffee shop, outdoors, and also retail that furniture. It's one affordable price whether you're looking to have it in your restaurants or retail those products." 

 

The End of Hot Oil: Transforming What Your Kitchen Can Offer 

Spring menus increasingly reflect what consumers actually want, lighter, healthier options that still feel indulgent. The traditional chip, for many operators, sits awkwardly in that conversation. But removing it from the menu isn't straightforward when it's one of the highest-margin items in a café kitchen. 

Whitco's partnership with Swedish manufacturer Light Fry offers a solution that resolves the tension entirely. Their technology eliminates hot oil from food preparation, cooking at 250–260°C compared to traditional fryers' 175–185°C. The result is food that stays hotter longer after service, achieves superior crispness without oil's greasy residue, and carries significantly better nutritional credentials. 

Henrik Önnermark, representing Light Fry, captured the consumer shift directly: "Gen Z doesn't want to eat fatty food. The chip has become a potato we can eat and enjoy rather than something we take a few off a plate and leave because we feel conscious about it." 

For spring trading, the operational benefits are equally significant. No drums of oil entering the kitchen, no grease trap cleaning, no hazardous waste disposal. Energy consumption during operation runs just 9.5kW per hour, with standby consumption at full temperature of merely 1kW. Return on investment calculations show 9–15-month payback periods when factoring in eliminated oil costs, reduced labour, and improved gross profit margins; chips cooked without oil achieve approximately 80% GP versus 60% with traditional frying. 

There's also a safety dimension worth noting before kitchens move into their busiest period. Vita Whitaker observed: "In Westminster, fire brigades respond to restaurant fires approximately ten times daily, nearly always starting in kitchens. The fryer is essentially the fire in most commercial kitchens. We're removing that risk completely." 

For garden centres with ventilation constraints or outdoor service points looking to expand their offer for Easter and summer trading, Light Fry's ventless solution opens up menu possibilities that simply weren't available before. 

 

The Time to Plan Is Now 

The window between now and Mother's Day is shorter than it looks. Equipment lead times, staff training, menu development,  all of these require decisions made in advance, not on the morning of a busy weekend. Operators who are already running AI baking systems, dual-purpose furniture programmes, and oil-free kitchens will head into spring with a meaningful advantage: months of operational experience behind them before their competitors have even placed orders." 

The garden centre sector's position, serving health-conscious, environmentally aware customers who expect quality seasonal experiences, makes these innovations particularly well-suited to where the market is heading. Spring is the moment those values come to life in a way customers genuinely notice. 

For garden centre operators interested in exploring how AI baking, multi-use furniture, or oil-free frying might transform their spring and beyond, further information can be found at whitcoltd.com.