A popular and well-known figure in the garden industry, Steve Morgan is the sort of person you would want to be on your side. In many ways he built Zest and the wider P & A Group of which he is also Chair, to the same model. It’s a family business, where the workforce is united in a passion for crafting product from natural timber, focused on wellbeing and the outdoors.
Heritage, resilience, and wellbeing
Steve attributes his team-driven ethos to his family background. “I had a very physical upbringing. The family had been in the timber business for five generations and as youngsters, my brother used to cut trees and I used to chop the logs and we’d sell them at weekends for firewood. In between, county level swimming and rugby, playing at one time for North Wales, and a passion for sport in general. I also had a strong ‘will not fail’ drive, backed up by an equally strong conviction from my father, Malcolm Morgan that you do not quit.”
The P&A Group was established by Malcolm in 1985, as a producer of pallets. Steve continued, “I worked in production where the payment was piece work. So, I got ultra-competitive and thought of the fastest way to create a pallet with the least wastage. My ideas must have proved useful as I got promoted to fencing panels!” Having got involved in the business, Steve furthered his qualifications, acquiring firstly a diploma in timber technology and then a degree. He became production manager which he describes as ‘a baptism of fire’. “But I picked it up, putting in time-saving methods on pallets and fencing and became production director.”
Along the way, Steve pursued his passion for sport. After giving up playing rugby, he took up cycling and marathon running, before moving to the triathlon, participating in eight Ironman events as well tackling a marathon in Greece in the format of the original marathon. He also took up karate in which he is now a black belt. Many of his sporting initiatives have been undertaken for charity, something which continues to this day in the culture of both Zest and the P & A Group.
Since 2010, employees at Zest and the wider P&A Group have raised almost £200,000 for a range of local and national charities, including MS Cymru, Dementia UK, British Heart Foundation, Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancer Research UK, Action for Children, Alzheimer’s Society, Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, Meningitis Now, and MIND. This year the company is supporting Tenovus Cancer Care and North Wales Wildlife Trust and has a fundraising goal of £10,000, as well as donating volunteer hours.
Steve said, “Kindness costs nothing and I’ve always stressed the importance of the whole team getting involved. I’m proud of the ways employees choose to raise money from sky diving to marathons, especially as many have never been involved in anything so physically challenging before. This year’s activities include tackling the fastest and longest zipline in Europe, the West Cheshire 10K and the North Wales Coastal path relay, and over the years, I’ve witnessed genuine resilience and encouragement, with colleagues supporting one another. It’s about more than raising money; it’s about building a culture of care, community, and wellbeing.
Customer focus
“When my father retired, the upshot was ‘you have the business; I’m off’ and taking over proved challenging. But in some ways, I wouldn’t have had it any other way. The steps that needed to be taken to grow successfully were taken then and there, and my approach has always been to understand and meet the needs of our many customers, always aiming to be the supplier of choice for each.”
Zest was established in 2005 to bring high quality timber garden products to consumers via garden centres, online retailers, department stores and major purchasing groups across the UK. It also has its own e-commerce business. All products are designed at Zest’s in house innovation centre, the design.shed at the company’s site in Saltney and then hand-crafted from slow grown softwood, sourced from sustainable PEFC-certified forests. The range includes outdoor furniture, arbours and arches a ‘grow your own’ offer and the hugely successful outdoor entertaining collection, featuring the award winning modular Terraza Outdoor Kitchen. 2026 has also seen the launch of a ‘Made In
Britain’ range including seating, dining and planter products.
Steve explained, “Zest’s two drivers are customer focus, designing product that will delight the user and support the retailer; and secondly, putting sustainability at the heart of everything we do.”
It is undoubtedly innovation that unites these two. Researching and understanding consumer trends, aesthetically and in terms of wellbeing and being close to nature, combine with Steve’s knowledge of and passion for timber to inspire the team’s commitment. But product development is not the only aspect of the company’s drive to innovate. Equally key is its pursuit of sustainability.
Commitment to the environment
“The importance of responsibly sourced timber is as much of a focus to me as it was to my ancestors in 1870 and I’m proud that it remains at the forefront of what we do,” said Steve. Zest holds both a Forest Stewardship Council® certification (FSC®- C114990) and a Programme for the Endorsement of Forest certification (PEFC/16-37-1490), providing purchasers with complete environmental assurance. Together with its supply partners, it is dedicated to re-planting schemes and nurturing woodland habitat, collaborating on a 10,000-acre replanting scheme in Poland and working with the North Wales Wildlife Trust. The company operates a zero-timber waste policy, fueling its
200-kilowatt biomass boilers with any otherwise unusable timber, and has installed solar panels and rainwater collection, with the combined effect providing heating, lighting, and hot water.
There are also ongoing developments in IT, CRM, and warehouse management to minimise transport, improve packaging and optimise manufacturing techniques for both quality and sustainability. Key to the ongoing evolution of the Zest brand is Steve’s decision to appoint former Financial Director, Andrew Baker as Managing Director. Not only
sharing Steve’s commitment to sport, wellbeing, and teamwork, Andrew will deliver on company performance and strategic development. As Steve says, “Together we are enjoying going to the trade shows and the opportunity to work with the sales team and meet customers to understand their needs going forward.”
A company we can all be proud of Steve concluded, “My family taught me to always try and do the right thing, appreciate life, be generous and be fair. And that is what the business is about,” concluded Steve. “To be a company, we can all be proud of, I want to do things for the right reasons, and I want everyone to aspire to be a part of the team and clearly, they do. It’s about putting the right people in the right roles and supporting them to deliver.”
