Selling Peat in 60 Countries: The Hortimed Rebranding Story

Interview with Anna Tentere, Head of Marketing at Hortimed.

Hortimed and Nordagri are two sister companies with the same owners, selling peat and plant biostimulants to more than 60 countries worldwide from a factory in Ogre, Latvia. Although they’ve been operating separately, they’re now merging under the name Nordagri.

Both brands will continue to be used, since different markets have different agreements and needs. The markets have been divided: China and South America lean more towards Hortimed, while Korea and the Middle East are under Nordagri. 

Bright yellow packaging stands out in a category where the competitors love green, brown, and beige

What is the role of marketing in your company?

Our main focus is to support the sales team. We don’t think too much about the end consumers who open the package and use it in their garden. Instead, we focus on visibility at exhibitions, providing sales materials, and being active on social media, but only to be seen by B2B professionals.

Our main customers are plant nurseries. These range from seeding producers in Dubai to grape growers in Georgia or blueberry farms in Korea. Then we have distributors who sell to DIY shops and similar channels. Some customers buy raw peat, mix it with other components, and resell. The customer profile is a mix of resellers, distributors, and nurseries.

You are selling a commodity - how important is the brand?

Exactly, it’s more of a commodity. If it's a rainy summer like this year, we can’t harvest much because the bogs are too wet. Then the price goes up due to lower supply. In this business, marketing in the traditional sense is not as crucial. It's more about availability, price, and logistics.

For example, shipping to the Middle East takes two months. Many producers sell in white bags with just a label, and it works. Our owner, however, really values marketing. He’s very visual and enjoys trying different things, which is why he worked with McCann Riga and White Label marketing agencies for rebranding. He wants things to look nice.

For now, I handle exhibitions around the world, from designing and producing stands to creating brochures and booklets. We also frequently tweak product designs based on customer feedback. Visual tastes differ across regions. In Asia, for example, customers might want brighter colors because the packaging fades in sunlight. We also offer private labeling. A customer from Libya wanted bright red and green labels because the original design looked too pale. We accommodate that when customers pay accordingly.

In this business, being design-conscious is not very common. So do buyers care?

Some do, some don’t. In Africa, many customers do not care about packaging. They might not even require barcodes.

More advanced markets, like Korea and China, definitely care about design.

Resellers who sell to DIY chains care a lot, because visuals help sell the product. While end users often discard the packaging quickly, our team, especially my boss and I, still prioritize brand consistency.

I follow the brand book strictly. My boss likes to experiment, but I believe that sticking to the guidelines keeps everything organized and helps reinforce brand identity. For example, yellow is a core color of our visual identity.

Bright yellow exhibition stand stands out in crowded venues

Speaking of exhibitions, how do you stand out among hundreds of competitors?

With Hortimed, it's easy to stand out because of the bright yellow. Most of the industry uses earth tones like green, brown, and beige. We do three to four exhibitions per year per brand, so it's busy. We aim for consistency: same booth position, same look, same message.

We also pay attention to small details. Branded T-shirts, candies, pens. No printed brochures, just QR codes to collect emails and track engagement. We are planning a WeChat mini page for Hortimed because WeChat is dominant in China.

How do you handle design expectations that differ across markets? Do you adapt the brand or keep it uniform like IKEA?

We don’t adapt the main brand much. Instead, we offer private labels. Bottle labels are easy to customize because we print them in-house. Peat bags, however, are made in Germany and take two months to produce, so they are only customized when customers pay for them.

That’s why we reserve custom designs for large orders or those who pay extra. The bottles are clean and aesthetic. Some say they look like baby shampoo. That’s intentional. We want them to appear safe and natural. Hortimed is all-natural, Nordagri includes chemical products. That helps us differentiate the brands.

What are the most important export markets?

For Hortimed, China is the biggest. We sell non-branded big bales of peat there. North Africa, including Morocco and Libya, is also important. Brazil and Peru are strong markets too. For Nordagri, it's different. Georgia is also a significant market.

These choices are partly historical, partly customer-driven. Customers write through our website and ask for products, and we forward their inquiries to our sales team, which is organized by region. Depending on the customer's needs, we offer either Hortimed or Nordagri. The brands are quite distinct, and most people prefer Hortimed now.

How do you generate leads?

We send newsletters to both current and older customers. We always include a call to action and website link in our LinkedIn posts. The website allows inquiries right on the homepage. We don’t pay for LinkedIn ads regularly, only occasionally for exhibitions to use LinkedIn messaging.

Even without daily ads, we get about five new inquiries per day for both brands. Peat is sourced only from the Baltics and Canada, so anyone who needs it knows to contact a Latvian, Lithuanian, or Estonian company. The Baltics supply half the world.

You've been at Hortimed for a year and a half. What are your biggest marketing lessons?

I didn’t expect so many changes that would affect marketing. I thought the products would be finalized, but since we are producers, development is ongoing.

New EU regulations require label updates. Research findings affect packaging, catalogues, price lists, exhibition stands—everything. It’s a constant chain reaction. Working with different cultures at exhibitions is also a challenge. Collaborating with Chinese teams is very different from working with Americans.

For example, our website www.hortimed.com was designed by White Label in Latvia, but built by a US company. The time difference and communication style were difficult, I would avoid working with the US again for this kind of project.

Hortimed's new website

Do you need a separate website for China?

Our website is accessible in China, but it's slow. That’s why we plan to build a WeChat mini page. Building a separate site in China’s internet environment would be expensive. Everyone there uses WeChat—it’s like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, and LinkedIn combined. We are working with a company in the Netherlands run by Chinese professionals to help us create this.

Do you localize your website and catalogs?

Yes, our site uses Google Translate for multiple languages, including Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, and German. We want to properly localize Chinese soon. Catalogs are also translated into all relevant languages. In Brazil, for example, customers think our sales rep speaks Portuguese fluently because they communicate via Google Translate. It works surprisingly well.

How much do you use AI in your work?

A lot! From writing product descriptions to filling space on packaging, brochures, and social media posts, AI helps improve language and clarity. We use it to tailor messages for different brands. When we had to inform customers about peat harvesting delays, AI helped us write it differently for Hortimet and Nordagri.

We also use AI for product photography. Transporting heavy peat bags for a photoshoot is difficult. Now, with a designer creating a mock-up, AI can generate beautiful, natural-looking product visuals. It’s much easier with objects than with humans. I even noticed a huge ad in Riga that was clearly AI-generated—it looked weird.

AI- generated product photo

Where do you get your inspiration or professional knowledge?

We look at what the big companies are doing, especially one major German shareholder in our company. They are global leaders, and we often follow their example. They organize influencer events, so we tried that this year in Latvia for the Hortimed hobby line.

We also monitor agricultural blogs, industry websites, and our competitors in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. We do not invest heavily in paid advertising. Exhibitions give us the best ROI because they attract customers who already have purchase intent. After exhibitions, we always follow up with photos and new contacts.

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CASE STUDY: Hortimed rebranding by White Label The winner of the Golden Parrot Awards 2025 in the branding category

The Challenge

Every brand initially says the same things — natural, organic, sustainable — while hiding behind vague claims. Hortimed had solid products and sharp minds behind them (part scientists, part salespeople), but they were going into battle with no tools to back them up: no structure, no sales arguments, no identity that could hold its own in export markets.

The product offering was a maze — impossible to navigate for new clients. Even the team selling it couldn’t explain it when we, as an agency, came to work with them. Every pitch to the client was improvised.

Markets like Australia, South Africa, and the Far East were chosen for entry but were also very demanding. Some buyers expected cutting-edge sustainability; others wanted proof of performance. Hortimed had both — but no brand system to deliver the message cleanly.

With more product about to hit the line, the real fear wasn’t operational — it was commercial. If the brand couldn’t catch up with the factory, they’d have the world’s most efficient warehouse of unsold peat.

The Goal

Enter new markets, win more clients, and turn long sales cycles into shorter ones. One pressing issue: a huge increase in production capacity that would outpace demand unless the brand could pull its weight. So the brand had to become sharper, faster, and easier to buy.

Key goals:

• Clearer product structure

• More compelling sales tools

• Strong positioning for export markets

The Strategy and Creative Idea

The strategy’s task was to reframe the category and make Hortimed the one brand in the room that didn’t sound like everyone else talking about “high quality” and “natural growth.”

The brand slogan — “Soil Reinvented” — was a statement that instantly divided the room.

Traditional buyers mostly see soil as something that shouldn’t be touched. But the ones we wanted to reach were looking for a competitive edge. The idea of using something radically new to get better results was what Hortimed was selling.

We rebuilt the brand architecture from the ground up:

• Hortimed Pro – for professional-grade peat products

• Hortimed Humus – for innovative additives and enhancers

• Hortimed Garden – for the hobbyist market, sold via retail

  
  

Each sub-brand has its own voice, its own logic, and its own use case. But all are tied back to the core idea of innovation — and to a design system that made that innovation feel real.

Visual Identity and Messaging

The visual identity avoided all the usual clichés. No lush greens or earthy browns trying to look “natural.” No photos on the packaging. Instead: a minimal, structured system anchored by a modular plus symbol and a clean sans-serif typeface. Desaturated photography showed the raw, unfiltered side of gardening — not the picture-perfect Instagram version.

Messaging highlights:

• “Better results demand a new way to grow.” — Hortimed Pro

• “New times. New demands. New solutions.” — Hortimed Humus

• “Gardening 2.0 at your doorstep.” — Hortimed Garden

We aimed to say just enough to get decision-makers interested. That interest led to better conversations.

Internal Alignment

Internally, we got buy-in from every level — including Florigard, Hortimed’s conservative German co-owner. We convinced them that “reinventing soil” wouldn’t scare off clients. Once they saw the clarity and structure behind the message, they softened up.

The sales team was given tools that matched the product: decks, price sheets, landing pages — everything built to help them sell faster and smarter. No more improvising.

The Results

• Client conversion time dropped from 6 months to just 4 — shortening a traditionally slow sales cycle.

• Retention improved, thanks to clearer product communication and brand consistency.

• Market entry expanded successfully to Australia, South Africa, and key Far East territories.

At industry exhibitions, feedback was overwhelmingly positive. Buyers described Hortimed as “fresh” and “different” compared to others. Internally, the sales team finally had materials that made them feel like proper salespeople — not farmers with brochures.

Hortimed is now seen as a valid and recognised brand. One that dares to challenge an old industry — and now has the structure, tools, and identity to back it up.