Meet Gareth: the founder who turned a childhood love of nature into the UK’s first living gift company

• Business name: Tree2mydoor

• Industry: Sustainable gifting

• Founded in: 2003

• Top business product: Business loan

• Key learning: “Every decision should benefit people, the planet and the company’s health.”

When Gareth Mitchell wanted to send something special to his parents back home in Northern Ireland, he imagined a fruit tree. But he couldn’t find a way to do it. 

That simple frustration planted the seed for Tree2mydoor, the UK’s original living gift company.

Drawing on a childhood spent exploring the countryside and foraging with his grandfather, Gareth built a business rooted in nature and meaning. He wanted to give customers access to gifts that were thoughtful, sustainable, and lasting: a living alternative to the usual flowers or mass-produced hampers.

Since 2003, Tree2mydoor has delivered over half a million trees and plants for weddings, anniversaries, new homes, memorials, and various other milestones. Every gift reflects that original vision: carefully sourced, packaged to last, and supported with lifetime care.

With patented packaging, ethical sourcing, and a focus on sustainability, Tree2mydoor continues to prove that gifting can be both meaningful and enduring.

Tree2mydoor has been running for more than 20 years. What first motivated you to turn your interest in nature and conservation into a business?

It was a perfect mix of push and pull forces coming together. The “pull” came from a personal desire: I wanted to send my parents gifts with real meaning, rather than just give them something mass-produced and generic. The “push” came from frustration in my role at the time. I was bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and eager to make my mark, but my boss had a tendency to say no a little too often. When these forces combined, the magic happened, and Tree2mydoor was born.

How did you go about building a viable commercial model around sustainability at a time when ethical gifting was far less mainstream than it is today?

Back in the early noughties, ‘organic’ was the big buzzword, and I watched some fantastic businesses struggle to stay afloat, most ultimately closing around the 2008 recession. Tree2mydoor has stood the test of time because I believed in what we were building, and I persevered.

When we started, there was no blueprint to follow. There simply wasn’t a business like ours. We learned every day what our customers were buying, why they bought it, and what they wanted next. Old-school startup learning, really. By building slowly on strong foundations, this not only helped the business grow, but I also became a sort of Yoda-like figure within it!

Over two decades, the business has seen huge shifts in retail and e-commerce. What have been the most important adaptations you’ve had to make to stay relevant?

We’ve come a long way since 2003. The pace of technological change, especially over the last three years, has been dizzying, and keeping up can be exhausting.

During Covid, our business grew massively, and what had once been a small hairline crack in an internal process suddenly became a massive canyon overnight. I’m hard-wired to fix and improve, so I mapped out every way we could enhance the retail experience and streamline the processes that make it work.

I ended up designing and building a retail system that gives full P&L control to an e-commerce website. In doing so, we’ve not only strengthened our own business but opened the door to becoming the backbone for purpose-led brands, while supporting established British manufacturers along the way.

What have you learned about customer behaviour as sustainable gifting has moved from niche to more competitive, mainstream territory?

Customers aren’t just buying green, they’re buying meaning. People want to feel proud of their choices. They’re drawn to gifts that reflect who they are and what they value, but they also want simplicity.

The biggest shift we've seen has actually been emotional, not commercial. Sustainability is no longer a checkbox; it’s part of identity. Our role is to make that feel easy, genuine and long-lasting. In that sense, we were way ahead of the curve when we started out.

How do you balance staying true to your environmental values while making the practical decisions needed to run a profitable business?

For me, profit and ethics aren’t opposites. We run the business like an ecosystem: every decision should benefit people, the planet and the company’s health. Sometimes that means saying no to cheaper options that would cost us credibility later.

What financial products/services have supported the business’ growth and operations?

In the early days, The Prince’s Trust (now The King's Trust) was instrumental. Their belief in the idea, along with seed funding, helped us take root. Later, Funding Circle, a platform connecting SMEs with investors, was crucial, providing investment at a particularly tough time when my son was born prematurely in 2014. 

I’m naturally cautious with finance; every borrowed pound should serve purposeful growth, not short-term gain. To me, capital is like compost: it’s about feeding what will grow strong and lasting, not what merely looks flashy for a season.

Looking back, which periods have tested the business the most, and what helped you navigate those moments successfully?

The 2008 recession, the birth of our premature son in 2014, and the intensity of Covid in 2020 all tested us differently. In each case, the same thing helped us through: purpose. Knowing why we existed kept us steady when everything else shook. We leaned on values, care for customers and their recipients, honesty with suppliers, and trust in slow growth. We also didn’t strive to hit vanity metrics. That steadiness became our competitive edge.

After 23 years, what still excites you about running Tree2mydoor, and what do you hope the business continues to stand for in the years ahead?

What excites me most is that the concept feels more alive than ever. Our brand has grown up and we’re experts in sustainable gifting. We’ve just introduced really beautiful packaging that’s both protective and adds to a brilliant unboxing experience. Our systems have been fine-tuned and we’re now ready for expansion.

Every time someone plants a gift tree, they join a quiet movement, already half a million trees strong, restoring real meaning to giving. I want Tree2mydoor to continue standing for that: gifts that grow, connections that endure, and a business that proves kindness and commerce can thrive in harmony.

This case study is for informational purposes only and is not intended as financial or professional advice. The results described are specific to the individual’s personal experience, so please consult with a qualified professional if you need financial advice.