Exeter firm Plantabox shortlisted for Smarta Award

The Smarta 100 – a shortlist of the UK's brightest, savviest small businesses – have just been revealed, and included is a fantastic small business from Exeter: Plantabox http://www.plantabox.co.uk/ .   

Plantabox sells wooden handmade crates based on the original apple crate design for storage, toy boxes, storage crates, retail display, wine boxes, herb gardens and planters. Owned by two people from different generations, Martin and Dave believe that fast, smart and focussed decisions are the key to the success of Plantabox as a brand. 

 

“We bought Plantabox two and a half years ago having seen an advert on the Internet. It was what I would describe as a 'kitchen table' type business run by two people literally in their back garden, but we saw huge potential,” Martin said.“When we moved the business to Exeter we drove to Bournemouth and put everything into a lorry and drove it back where we had to carry it up two flights of stairs to our old city-centre office”.    Plantabox had already been trading for about two years before Martin, a people person and Operations Director; and Dave, a marketing man and Managing Director who previously owned a digital agency in Nottingham, transformed it into a highly successful and growing online business. Martin continued: “We’ve built something up, created the right environment, nourished it and we’re delighted to see it grow.”     The Smarta 100 was selected by an all-star panel of entrepreneurs, including Theo Paphitis from Ryman and star of Dragons’ Den; Rowan Gormley, founder of Naked Wines and winner of the Smarta 100 in 2011; Mike Soutar, founder of Shortlist Media and Thea Green MBE, founder of Nails Inc.   With over 1,200 entries from across the UK, the Smarta 100 celebrates the top 100 companies that are on track to becoming the fast-growth superstars of the future.   For more information visit www.smarta.com   Photo by Matt Austin