How Swan Is Responding to the Coronavirus

The dramatic spread of COVID-19, the infectious disease caused by the newly discovered coronavirus, has devastated lives and livelihoods worldwide. At the time of this writing, there are well over 450,000 deaths in the United States alone, and layoffs have pushed unemployment to levels unseen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

During this unprecedented time, Swan–The Watering Company has taken extraordinary measures to manage the crisis throughout our organization. We’ve implemented new systems to protect the health and wellbeing of our employees and their families, while at the same time, limiting disruptions to our product supply to best serve our customers.

One of our initial steps was to close all of our offices and make arrangements for most of our employees to work from home to prevent the further spread of the virus. We also distributed face masks to our employees to help them reduce their exposure to the virus whether at work or in their daily lives.

We also closed our manufacturing plants in Waco, Texas, and Sparks, Nevada, for three weeks. Employees at these locations were sent home with pay while we converted their workstations to accommodate social distancing requirements and use of personal protective equipment (or PPE).

“The overwhelming focus at Swan when this pandemic hit was the health and safety of our employees and their families,” says Ben Williams, vice president of product development at Swan. “We immediately began shutting down offices and plants to convert them to operate in a safe and healthy manner.” 

To avoid laying off any employees while the plants were closed, Swan decided instead to reduce their pay by 5 percent to 15 percent for about five weeks, depending on their earnings. We’re happy to report that we’ve since returned all of our employees to their regular pay, with the exception of our chief executive officer and senior staff.

Similarly, we reopened our manufacturing plants on May 4 with PPE for all employees, as well as workstations spaced at least six feet apart in accordance with guidelines administered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to Williams, Swan is proud to be a company in the garden hose industry that took such dramatic, decisive action in the face of the pandemic.

“We ignored the financial cost to the business and focused solely on our employees’ wellbeing,” Williams says.

Interestingly, national stay-at-home orders have created a surge in e-commerce for Swan. Online orders of garden hoses and accessories have doubled compared with the same time last year, with soaker hoses and accessories as the most popular items.

According to a May 13 article on the Good Housekeeping magazine website, gardening has exploded in recent months because of increasing anxiety over food supply due to the coronavirus. In late March, “interest in gardening hit an all-time high,” says Google Trends, while searches for “growing vegetables from scraps” was up 4,650 percent from year’s past.

Meanwhile, George Ball, chairman of the long-standing Burpee Seeds, told Reuters they’ve sold more seeds in March 2020 than in any time in their 144-year history.

Have you been gardening more because of the coronavirus? Let us know in the comments below. We’d love to hear about it! And remember to stay safe and shop at Swan for all of your garden’s watering needs!

Swan Announces New Licensing Partnership with John Deere

Swan has partnered with distinguished American brand John Deere in creating a line of licensed garden hoses that are best in class.

As the leading manufacturer of the highest-quality, best-performing garden hoses on the market, Swan felt it was the perfect fit for the top global brand in the agricultural and industrial space and its devoted customers.

The initial results are two garden hose lines that showcase the core values that both companies share. The JohnDeere Garden Hose with CoreFUSION™ Technology, for instance, is a heavy-duty PVC garden hose that represents the innovation and quality at the heart of both brands. Designed in the iconic green and yellow colors of the John Deere brand, the garden hose is one of the first to feature Swan’s new CoreFUSION™ technology, a major advancement in garden hose functionality that makes a garden hose kink-free.

CoreFUSION™ technology uses Swan’s patent-pending co-extrusion process to add strong rods of a unique compound throughout the entire length of a garden hose’s interior wall for reinforcement. These proprietary rods cause the garden hose to bend only so far in any direction, eliminating the kinks that cut off water flow. These rods also increase the garden hose’s strength up to 35 percent compared with other garden hoses. This significantly improves the ability of the John Deere Garden Hose to resist damage under tension and therefore makes it one of the longest-lasting garden hoses on the market.

Another great feature of the John Deere Garden Hose with CoreFUSION™ Technology is Swan’s new Ergonomic Female Grip at the female coupling. The grip—featuring John Deere’s well-known leaping-deer trademark—turns with the coupling to allow for an easy and tight attachment to the water source. The garden hose also has a powerful burst strength of 500 PSI.

A second hose in the PVC line is the heavy-duty John Deere Garden Hose with Lay-Flat Technology®. At the core of the garden hose is a proprietary compound along with Swan’s exclusive Lay-Flat Technology®. This technology allows the garden hose to uncoil and lay flat as soon as first use and to Snap Back Into Shape!® to fight kinks as you drag it across the lawn. Together these features provide not only additional durability, but also the highest achievement in garden hose flexibility and kink-resistance. The John Deere Garden Hose with Lay-Flat Technology® also has a powerful 500 PSI burst strength, oversized crush-proof couplings and an abrasion-resistant jacket in the iconic green and yellow colors of the John Deere brand.

The second garden hose line features a premium rubber hose based on Swan’s innovative MAXLite technology. The JohnDeere Rubber Hose has a powerful 500 PSI burst strength as well as an exclusive rubber formula that makes it twice as strong and 40 percent lighter than standard rubber hoses. It can also expertly handle a wide range of temperatures, remaining flexible down to -40 degrees Fahrenheit. The John Deere Rubber Hose also has a 30 percent longer lifespan from sun exposure due to better UV performance. Designed as a black hose with a yellow stripe in the iconic yellow of the John Deere brand, it also features Swan’s new Ergonomic Female Grip at the female coupling complete with John Deere trademark.

Both the PVC and rubber garden hose lines will be available in various diameters and lengths. Several sizes are already available in local and regional retailers in the Midwest, with this expected to expand to select nationwide retailers in the coming months. John Deere garden hoses will also be available to authorized John Deere dealers, as well as on Swan’s website, www.swanhose.com.

Swan, in keeping with its mission of enriching lives by bringing Earth’s most essential resource—water—to where it’s needed most, hopes that its John Deere-branded garden hoses will expose the company to a larger global audience and resonate with consumers across the country and beyond. Swan is confident that in partnering with John Deere, its garden hoses will have high appeal in the marketplace.

Let us know what you think about our partnership with John Deere and the John Deere garden hose lines in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you!