Three years ago, Scott Allshouse was Sarasota Green Group's only employee, working solo to find and create natural gardening products made of safe kitchen ingredients, such as sea salt and vinegar. These products eventually turned into a full-fledged Sarasota-based gardening product company, which will soon be on shelves in over 1,000 Lowe's Home Improvement stores across the country.
The company sells pest control and gardening products that are safe and effective for people, pets and the planet.
Sarasota Green Group fills a gap in the gardening industry, Allshouse, the company's CEO and president, said.
“There are products out there that have been safe, but they usually don’t work all that well,” he said. “And there are products that have been effective, but maybe they’re harmful. We found this sweet spot where the products work really well, but they’re still safe.”
This balance makes the company's mainstay brand, Earth’s Ally, attractive to buyers, Allshouse said. Earth’s Ally comes as an insecticide, a fungicide, or a weed killer and sells in all 50 states and on Amazon.
Sarasota Green Group, which now has eight employees and an office in Sarasota, has been working with Lowe's in the past year to make Earth's Ally widely available to customers.
The products will be on shelves in just over 1,700 Lowe's stores across the country by spring 2022, which will “put the product on the map in a big way and give us a lot of visibility,” Allshouse said.
The company is also selling products to Floridian entities, including Manatee County, which uses Earth’s Ally to treat weeds around beach parks and recreational areas.
The insecticide, which contains rosemary, clove, and peppermint oils, along with the fungicide, which contains citric acid, were sourced from organic farmers. These products were previously unavailable to home gardeners.
“These are all ingredients that you would have in your home, your kitchen, and that you’re not afraid to have around your family and pets,” he said.
The gardening industry grew during the pandemic, as people looked for activities they could do safely from home, Allshouse said. But of course, there were pandemic-related challenges as well.
“As a new brand, new company, selling products that people aren’t familiar with yet, it’s been a challenge selling over Zoom calls without that personal interaction,” Allshouse said. “It slowed things down a bit.”
But Sarasota Green Group plans to speed back up by developing new products and ideas for the future.
“We’re just at the beginning stages and the very forefront in how this industry is going to be shifting,” Allshouse said. “This is the future of pesticides and gardening products for sure.”
