Up The Garden Bath to mark £300,000 in sales with epic 100-person photoshoot in city centre

A Peterborough eco-group are celebrating ringing in £300,000 in sales at their collaborative retail store by inviting 100 people to an epic open-air photoshoot.

The 100-strong group has been vital to Up The Garden Bath’s success, helping to donate old bathtubs for planters, volunteering on community projects and creating items to sell in store.

Co-founder, Dave Poulton, said: “We wanted to invite everyone who has helped us on our journey, these people are the cornerstone of what we believe in; working together to create change.

“To give these people the opportunity to be part of this celebration just felt right.”

‘The first year we had to write it off’

Up The Garden Bath was piloted by determined duo Dave Poulton and Kez Hayes-Palmer in 2019, just months before lockdown.

The pair set to work in the city centre piloting Up The Garden Bath, telling anyone who would listen about their impassioned educational idea to turn bathtubs into planters.

Their first idea was to collect old bathtubs to make into sustainable flower planters.

However, come 2020, their key markets of schools, community centres and residential care homes were inaccessible due to the pandemic restrictions.

“We were shouting about the idea in Peterborough just trying to get some traction,” Dave added.

“When we finally launched in 2020, six weeks later, the world went into lockdown. We hadn’t planned for that.

“The first year, we had to write it off. It’s very hard to run a community project when you’re cut off from the community.”

Thinking on their feet, the pair had the idea to create eco-friendly fabric plant pots, known as FabRE, made from recycled material, to stay afloat.

After selling 2,000 items, generating nearly £20,000 in sales and seeing their idea go viral, the idea was put forward for a prestigious Small Business Sunday award - backed by Dragons Den former panellist Theo Paphitis - which the team won.

The buzz around the zero-waste idea, which sees the product fold inside out from envelope to plant pot, saw Up The Garden Bath approached by Queensgate Shopping Centre management and the pair were invited to fill an empty pop-up store now known as UNITY.

‘We’re very driven people’

Kez said: “This month we have just celebrated our four year anniversary - but we’ve only been able to trade for the best part of three years - so that’s massive.

“We had ambitions that we would create something large but when we created our business model, we just wanted to create a life which would sustain us.

“The fact we’ve done what we’ve done in a short time is very humbling. We’re very driven people.”

Fast forward four years - and a permanent shop later - the UNITY project has helped to generate sales of almost £300,000.

The group is now on a mission to make their home city a brighter place to live, and promote social cohesion, through their clever business model.

Sales from the store not only go back into the pockets of the 150 small traders, who sell their items at UNITY, but the revenue also gets reinvested back into community projects in the city.

“When we have the bit between our teeth, and we had one success, it galvanised us to continue,” Dave said.

“We never thought we’d end up in the world of retail and here we are smashing it.

“To be able to empower and encourage small local businesses to grow has been the best experience of Up The Garden Bath’s short existence. It’s really humbling when someone thanks us for giving them a chance in our shop.”

To date, Up The Garden Bath have installed 74 planters across educational facilities and community areas in Cambridgeshire.

The organisation has also showcased 150 small businesses, within a 50 mile radius of Peterborough, in their store, and delivered educational workshops to 15,000 people.

They are also employers of five staff with three new apprentices joining in September.

“We are giving small businesses the chance to grow,” Dave said. “For all I know, in our shop, we have the next big thing, the next craze.

“We are impacting so many people’s lives now - it’s brilliant, I love it.”