b'When we all met last year at thecrops that were either not planted or not ASTA Flower & Veg show, everything washarvested.just like normal, Blazek says. Then, eve- On the U.S. commercial side, Gale rything really broke loose in February andnotes that they had less of a foreign March, and there were a lot of unknownsworker issue, and more of a market issue. about what exactly was going to happen,If youre a type of grower supplying and how it would impact our industry. onions in a five-pound bag to grocery She notes that most NGB membersstores, there really wasnt a huge prob-are online seed sellers, which means, they,lem, he says. However, if youre on the like Gale, experienced an unprecedentedside of the industry selling a 50-pound demand.bag of onions to universities, cafeterias, Those sellers saw the impact immedi- processorsthose typesthen you ately, and were swamped, she says.suffered, because the restaurants and Another seed and plant company thatcafeterias closed.saw a huge spike in demand was Burpee.One thing in particular Blazek notes In 2020, we saw increased sales aswas how amazing it was for the retailers many people turned to home gardening,to come together and solve this problem. says Jamie Mattikow, CEO and presidentWeve heard so many heartwarm-of Burpee. Since March, Burpee is uping, innovative stories on how companies 60% compared to the same time in 2019,were able to deal with everything, she with a mix of both experienced and newsays. You know, theyre in the midst ofDiane Blazek.gardeners.shipping out to the consumers when the Mattikow says that in particular, edi- pandemic hit, and suddenly, no one was bles had strong growth in 2020. able to be in their offices. But we were Namely, tomatoes, peppers squashhearing anywhere between 200 to 400% and beans all saw strong growth andof normal seed orders and sales.demand, he says. There was also height- Trying to tackle that kind of demand ened interest in our heirloom and organicwith short staff made it difficult, to say varieties. the least.All-in-all, Mattikow estimates over 18They had to add second and third million new gardeners from 2020.shifts, but then the question became: how To help these new gardeners achievedo you add employees during a pan-success, we offered curated suggestionsdemic? Blazek says. One of our mem-for easy-to-grow plants in our first-everbers thought: Hey, all the restaurants are fall digital catalogue, he says.closed. They ended up speaking to one of their friends in the restaurant industry Seeing and Tackling Problems and were able to bring the restaurant Gale found some difficulty in fulfillingstaff in to help their company fulfill orders.orders with the pandemic. I might look at life through rose colored There was a lot of COVID anxiety inglasses, she jokes, but I think that there employees, and I know some companiesare an incredible number of people who did better managing it than we did, hewere innovative in how they dealt with says. A lot of people didnt want to comewhat the pandemic was dealing them.into work. We lost a lot of staff, especially in the home garden side. Whats Seed Supply Look Like?On the commercial side of the com- While 2020 might have shaped up to beJamie Mattikow.pany, Gale notes growers in Canada suf- hectic on the home garden seed side of fered due to foreign worker problems.things, 2021 is shaping up a little better.Canada was slow in getting clear- One thing of importance that Gale ances for a lot of the staff that came upnotes is that it does not look like there will from Mexico and the Caribbean, whichbe a seed shortage at all.caused a number of our growers toWe havent seen signs of a seed suffer, he says. There were a lot of earlyshortage, and so far, theres been nothing 36/ SEEDWORLD.COMFEBRUARY 2021'