With over 40 years of experience, Apta is the leading trade supplier of innovative garden pottery and associated products throughout the UK and Ireland.
Apta serves over 1,200 customers in the UK and Ireland, selling over three million pots a year. Although Apta has evolved from its humble beginnings in 1981, one thing has remained constant; the desire to sell high-quality, innovative products that last for years to come.
THE APTA STORY
Apta was founded in 1981 by Colin Jones, and his wife Leslie, who provided customers with a range of high-quality Italian pots.
The business saw exceptional growth in the 1990s when Apta began to import products from the Far East to serve customer demand. The growth gave Apta the opportunity to design and create new, innovative ranges of products that hadn’t been seen in the UK previously.
Around the same time, Alan Titchmarsh graced TV screens on the show, Ground Force, and featured many products which inspired the nation’s gardeners. This ultimately let to the rapid growth within the planter’s market.
In the early 2000s, Apta looked at ways to serve their customers better. Apta recognised that Garden Centres and Nurseries struggled to find the time to display heavy pottery products in an attractive way, to allow customers to easily access them. As such, they introduced a Merchandising service. This saw a small team travel across the UK to unpack and display posts for Garden Centres. With a team of over 50 Merchandisers, the service is still going strong and allows Apta to build great relationships with customers.
With customers in mind, Apta extended their support by offering a pick and pack service. Rather than selling products per pallet, they offered customers the opportunity to purchase small numbers of multiple product ranges. This especially worked well with smaller Garden Centres and Nurseries that wanted to buy a smaller, but diverse range of stock. It’s a very popular service that Apta still offers today from their distribution centre in Ashford, Kent.
THE JOINING OF AMES UK
In 2019, Apta joined the AMES family, an organisation working with garden centres and retailers across the UK & ROI. Joining forces with Kelkay, True Temper, and La Hacienda, Apta is now a key part of a group that combines over 100 years of expertise in supplying inspirational products to transform outdoor spaces. AMES joins the best brands and people in the industry to deliver high-quality garden products for customers across the UK and Ireland.
THE FUTURE
Today, Apta serves over 1,200 customers in the UK and Ireland, selling over 3 million pots a year. Although Apta has evolved from its humble beginnings in 1981, one thing has remained constant; the desire to sell high-quality, innovative products that last for years to come.