Celebrating the best in French garden retail at the 36th Graines d’Or

PARIS, France: French media company Media Jardin Groupe J announced the winners of the 2021 Graines d’Or Awards during a glittering awards ceremony at the Hôtel InterContinental Paris le Grand on 2 December. The 36th edition of the awards saw multiple garden retailers and retailing giants accepting awards in different categories with garden centre chain Trufaut reigning supreme  in many categories. Outgoing Val’Hor president Mikaël Mercier won the Personallity of the Year award.

Hosting  the awards was Carole Tolila,  who together with Stéphane Marie presents France’s popular tv gardening and advice show Silence ça Pousse.

Outgoing Val’Hor President Mikaël Mercier.

Tolila invited Media Jardin Groupe J director Jean Michel Joannes to the stage who explained why his prepared speech about togetherness had become less appropriate hour by hour. “Amid concerns about the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 three major garden centres chains have cancelled tonight’s participation in the ceremony and others followed suit.”

Joannes said he dearly missed their presence and thanked all contestants for their hard work and achievements.

Subsequently Tolila presented awards in different categories with the name of Truffaut being mentioned several times. In the category Garden centre buyers of  garden materials and garden centre buyers of garden decoration materials, Truffaut ’s purchasers Serge Briet and Philippe Gibert won the first prize respectively. Briet also earned the overall title of Garden Centre Buyer of the Year.

Outgoing Val’Hor president and a grower of acidophilic plants in Guiclan (Brittany) Mikaël Mercier won the Garden Retail Personality of the Year award putting the seal on a year of exceptional professional achievement and in recognition for his hard work, perseverance and determination with which he guided France’s ornamental horticulture industry through the pandemic.

Val Hor’s newly elected president Cathérine Muller took to the stage to present Truffaut with the   Garden Centre of the Year award in the living plants category.  Muller said that each and every winner it a credit to ornamental horticulture in France, which, she says, this year was blooming in a film starring Catherine Frot, who plays a rose breeder in La Fine Fleur, the movie that premiered in June this year.

Finally , for the 13th consecutive year the Graines d’Or grand prize went to Truffaut, which share the award with Jardiland as both companies finished ex aequo.