It’s great to have you guys back, how’s life been at Shogun over lockdown?
Lockdown for us has been packed with surprises that were very challenging, not least because we had most of our staff working from home. When Covid and the restrictions first hit, we also had to deal with customers suddenly bulk-buying our products to make sure they had enough to get through lockdown.
At the time, we relied on our international supply chain to make our formulations, but obviously the pandemic made it increasingly hard to source certain ingredients. So, with some quick thinking and brilliant internal innovations, we were able to switch to a local supply chain instead. The result of which is that today, everything we put on our shelves has been sourced, made, and packaged in the UK.
Can you explain why you chose the name “SHOGUN”? Tell us also a bit about your company ethos?
A Shogun was a supreme military leader in pre-modern Japan and, just like a Japanese warrior, our products have proven to be powerful and cutting edge. The SHOGUN Fertilisers brand was born out of a desire to create something special, something new for the hydroponics market.
In terms of our ethos, we don’t believe in cutting corners and have a rigorous production process ensuring every grower gets the best out of our nutrient range. On average it takes over twelve months to perfect our formulations and we make no apologies for that. Also, we’re a completely British owned brand, with all our products made in Britain. This is not just a source of pride for our team and our customers, but also means our nutrients haven’t spent days or weeks on trucks, boats or planes, resulting in a fresher product, better grows, and greater customer satisfaction.
We’ve created a range of products that combines exceptional performance with great value dilution rates. But we also listen to our customers, so have a wealth of experience when it comes to delivering what they really want from their nutrients and additives.
What are the key products in the SHOGUN range?
It’s always hard for a brand to pick out their best products, but in our case the conversation has to start with our Samurai Range. Although the science is the same, we felt we had to craft specific solutions for three different medias; hydro, coco and soil. All of them contain the SmartZen complex; an amazing additive that improves plant performance by up to 8% better than a standard NPK formula. On top of that, we’ve added AquaZen to our coco nutrients; a wetting agent that slows down the flow of water through the media for superior media saturation, meaning less waste and higher nutrient absorption potential.
However, when it comes to our additives, nothing can take the crown from our heavyweight flowering booster, Sumo Boost! We believe there’s simply nothing like it on the market. Not only is it designed to accelerate growth, but it’s also exceptional at handling biotic and abiotic stress conditions. We make it our mission to provide a primary and secondary function in the majority of our products; that way customers get incredible value at a competitive price.
A SHOGUN “hall of fame” isn’t complete though without mentioning Dragon Force and Katana Roots. Dragon Force is unlike anything we’ve seen on the market, expediting harvest by encouraging your plants to drastically improve growth at the point of harvest. Then you’ve got Katana Roots which not only initiates at the cuttings phase, but also encourages root growth throughout the life cycle of your crop. If you’re looking for a substantial difference in root size and network, Katana Roots is a staple in most of our growers' additive bundle.
All great plants need a strong foundation and the expertly formulated combination of ingredients in Katana Roots helps to create the most efficient uptake mechanism your plants could ever wish for, resulting in massively increased performance and ultimately better yields.
You do SHOGUN starter packs, is that enough to get you through a grow? And how many plants is one pack good for?
We’ve had so many of our biggest growers use the starter pack, and they can’t speak highly enough about it. The pack comes with some of our best-selling products and is definitely enough to grow around four plants. The starter pack is exactly that, an introduction to hydroponics and growing with our range, giving growers an affordable kit to test our range and see the results first-hand.
What makes the SHOGUN range so different to everything else on the market?
It’s no secret that the hydroponic nutrient industry is quite dated and filled with old brands that aren’t always the most innovative. We simply believed that had to change. So, through the hard work of our bio-engineers, Dr. Callie and Simon, we were able to make an up to date, innovative and ultimately superior range of products.
Ultimately, being clever and knowing the specifics of what plants need to grow effectively isn’t enough. At Shogun we pride ourselves on having the agility to translate that knowledge into actionable changes in our formulations that allow any grower to use any of our products effectively.
We know you’ve just released your Zenzym (read our Zenzym blog here), but are there other exciting things in development behind the scenes at SHOGUN?
We like to keep our ears close to the ground, so we’re constantly developing our product range according to what we see, and most importantly, what growers demand! We have a new product in the pipeline that we’re sure hasn’t been seen by the market, but you’ll have to wait for the announcement on that – stay tuned! Meanwhile, you can look forward to many of our products coming in new sizes; additives are being bumped up to 10L bottles and the entire Samurai range will be available at 25L.
Thank you to the team at Shogun for getting involved as always; if you want to learn more about the range, click here.
