Our Story So Far..

First Blog – Our story so far

As we enter our 5th year of business as A1 Astroturf, we have decided to create a brand new website to allow current and future customers to see the products that we offer and also have the ability to order online.

Starting Out

We started the business during lockdown in 2020, where after spending time in our gardens due to being stuck at home, we decided that we wanted to make our gardens look better. With a working background in the carpet industry, we decided to put artificial grass in our gardens and the rest is history.

We managed to source grass through a friend in the industry and started to offer it to others via Facebook. A few months later, we decided to take things further and that was the beginning of A1 Astroturf.

Choosing a name for the company was something that we thought long and hard about. We wanted to highlight the product that we were selling in the company name and show that the products that we offer are of the highest quality. We settled on ‘A1 Astroturf’ and created our new logo.

In the early days, we had full time jobs and run the artificial grass business on the side. We were still selling on Facebook and at boot sales at weekends. We would borrow a van and complete deliveries after work and on Saturdays.

We would buy a couple of rolls at a time and store them in our mum’s garage, doing cuts on the front drive after work hours.

Following lockdown, we were doing better with our sales and decided to make A1 Astroturf our full time business.

Full Time

In November 2021, we moved into our new warehouse, on Charfleets Industrial Estate, Canvey Island, SS8 0QW, where we still are today. A 6000sq ft warehouse which was perfect for us to be able to store both 4m & 5m widths of artificial grass either side of the warehouse, with a large space through the middle to be able to complete cuts.

We opened in the least busy time of year for artificial grass sales, going into the winter and with minimal amount of stock, around 3000m2.

We started by calling as many landscapers, and trade customers as possible, offering them free sample swatches of the ranges that we had in stock. The first few months weren’t very busy but we slowly managed to increase our trade customer base from 0 to around 30 landscapers that would regularly use our grass by the summer of 2022.

Getting our name out there

We have tried many ways to advertise and get our company noticed over the years. After solely using Facebook originally, we decided to sponsor up and coming Professional heavyweight boxer Johnny ‘The Romford Bull’ Fisher from just after his first Professional fight. Johnny has gone on to have a great career to date, winning his first 13 fights, 11 by way of knockout. We have been lucky to have had some great nights out watching Johnny fight and have become friends with himself and his family.

We have advertised in many local magazines such as the ‘Keep it Local’ magazine which we have regularly had full page adverts in over the past few years. We have also advertised in local newspapers such as ‘The Echo’ when promoting sale periods like bank holiday weekends.

We have been advertising on ‘Radio Essex’ since 2023, and recently have also started to advertise on ‘Essex Hits’ too.

We have an advertising board at Dagenham & Redbridge Football Club, have sponsored races at Romford Greyhound Stadium, and have sponsored kits for several grassroots Football Clubs.

Recently in 2025, we have put a lot of our advertising budget towards our brand new website, which allows both trade customers and the public to purchase artificial grass online. We have run this alongside a Google Ad’s campaign which has just gone live.

Our Products

We have always made sure that the ranges of grass that we offer are of a very high quality.

Having started with just 1 range of grass in 4m width only, we now offer 7 ranges which we offer in both 4m & 5m widths.

All of our ranges are part of our ‘Caribbean Collection’ which are named after different Caribbean Islands.

The ranges that we currently offer are:St Vincent 40mm

St Lucia 40mm

Jamaica 40mm

Antigua 35mm

Martinique 40mm

Cuba 45mm

Trinidad 37mm

We now import containers of Artificial Grass to ensure we are buying at the best available prices which means we can be very competitive with the prices that we can offer our products to customers for.

We import grass from both Europe and Asia, dealing with some of the largest manufacturers of Artificial Grass in the world.

We have recently signed sole UK exclusivity on a product, with a commitment to a large volume of containers to be ordered in a 12 month period. This again ensures that the price that we pay is as competitive as possible, allowing us to again be competitive when offering to our customers.

We stock all of the ranges in large volume, with around 50,000m2 grass in stock at all times.

Operations

We have always hand cut our products, to allow no margin for error as well as being able to quality check the product before delivery, something that can’t be guaranteed with a cutting machine.

We offer free delivery on all of our products, within a 100 miles radius of our Essex warehouse.

Currently in 2025, we have 2 vans on the road for deliveries every day Monday-Friday and have a collection service available from our warehouse Monday-Saturday.

We ensure that any orders are sent out for delivery within 48 hours, but normally within a 24 hour period.

Trade Customers

We have manged to grow our trade customer base from 0 to over 250 trade customers from moving into our warehouse in 2021 to present in 2025.

We offer free sample boards, made from Foamex to allow trade clients to show their customers our range of products.

The trade prices which we offer are very competitive which is why our retention rate of trade customers is so high.

The Future

We aim to continue to grow our customer base, whilst ensuring our high standards of service and quality of products are still met.

We believe that in the future, we may be able to expand our delivery area further out to service a bigger portion of the UK.

We are very proud of what we have achieved within our first 5 years of business, and thank every customer, past and present, for their business so far.