Hall 3 Stand P15
Kay Patel, director at The Seed Card Company, charts the company’s success, explains its planet-friendly aims – and reveals some of its latest ranges – see Hall 3 Stand P15
Tell us the background of the company.
During Covid, Lewis, Jit and I found ourselves going from running two successful companies to twiddling our thumbs overnight. Not ones for just sitting around, we came together and The Seed Card Company was born.
Jit and I have worked with Seed Card with our other company for over eight years and we always were in awe of this incredible material. It was our corporate clients, who are always striving for positive environmental impact, that spurred us to work with the material back then.
Initially our aim was to set up a successful brand with a compelling product to keep a roof over our heads, but the focus became doing more for our planet.
How could we change the game of the humble greeting card – change the script and create a brand that stands for something rather than the bottom line being the sole focus? Tell us about your artists/designs.
Being in design and print for over 30 years collectively, we are fortunate to be able to create all of our artwork in house. We’ve all had a hand in designing our collections and products, but as the business has grown, we’ve all found the roles which we excel at.
What can people grow from your cards?
We launched with the wildflower seed card. This contains a mix of six wildflowers seeds, which include Bird’s Eye, Black Eyed Susan, Catchfly, Clarkia, Snapdragon and Sweet Alyssum, and we recently launched carrot seed cards.
We’re also developing a whole host of new blends but they take a lot of R&D so watch this space!
We’ll be launching The Wet Lettuce collection plus our new basil and parsley collection at Spring Fair, as well as a very exciting collaboration with Emily Smith Designs, who is awesome!
Alongside notecard sets we launched our seed card gift tags and coordinating post-consumer waste wrapping paper towards the end of 2022. We will be showcasing our new thank you card sets too.
What are your best selling ranges?
We have 15 ranges; Plant Pot People (PPP), Continuous and The Doodlings are easily our bestsellers. PPP is so popular as the plant pot characters are relatable – it’s just such a perfect fit with seed card. Continuous appeals to our more discerning clients and The Doodlings to the more cheeky ones!
Talk to us about your eco-friendly credentials.
Seed card is made from other people’s waste, they are biodegradable and we print the truly sustainable material with vegan-friendly inks. Our envelopes are made from recycled materials and biodegradable too. All of our packaging is recycled, and can be recycled. We use zero plastic and plant trees for every order we receive. We also print on demand, which has been well received by our stockists when needing urgent top-ups. These rules trickle down to our POS stands – all made from upcycled wood.
Do you support retailers in any particular ways?
We try to be as flexible as possible. We understand that one shoe doesn’t always fit all so try to accommodate most requests, no matter how small. All of our products have custom-made POS stands and signage to help retailers get our message across to consumers, and we even provide offcuts for them to create their own living displays.
Are you planning to exhibit at any shows this year?
We are at Spring Fair, PG Live, Harrogate and Autumn Fair this year, so pop by to say hello. Lewis and Kay, especially, love a good chat!
Any plans in the pipeline?
More seed types is definitely the first and foremost development – we want people to be able to grow an entire meal from our cards! But we are not stopping at greeting cards. We have some exciting new product ranges in development (sorry – I’m not allowed to say what just yet!).
Anything in particular you are especially proud of?
Building The Seed Card Company from just an idea to being stocked in a number of independents and chains within the two years of being launched just makes us so grateful and appreciative of each other. Being recognised in the industry by some of the major publishers is humbling, and being featured in national newspapers that your family and friends pick up and read is just so rewarding.
We also launched a new point of sale wrapping paper, tag and card stand, which Lewis likes to call ‘The One Stop Seed Card Shop’. The reception it received at Autumn Fair not only from stockists but also fellow peers within the industry was such a proud moment for us three, as the project was truly blood, sweat and tears and a real show of what we can achieve.
Reasons why retailers should stock your cards?
If there is one thing the three of us know, it’s every little thing about seed card. The do’s and don’ts – from how to ensure we provide the best seed card, to ensuring the seeds germinate before and after it has been printed. The industry is being flooded with this beautiful card but it is really important to us to ensure that the products we supply to our stockists actually do grow and it’s not just a gimmick.
020 7183 5334
trade@theseedcardcompany.com
www.theseedcardcompany.com
