As the founder of Exaco, Andrew Cook has made it his mission to bring European gardening culture to North America.

Andrew grew up in Rotterdam, close to the Dutch capital of Amsterdam. As a kid, he observed how his family and neighbors lived closely with the land and their surroundings. Backyard gardens were extremely common, as were greenhouses enabling cultivation through periods of frost in early spring and late fall. Composting was nearly ubiquitous, since everyone who gardened could put the resulting soil to immediate use. People also seemed aware of the environmental benefits to resource capture and reuse, evident through their use of rain barrels and their focus on recycling.

All of this fostered Andrew’s interest in environmentally sustainable living. He studied first at the Royal Agricultural University in England, and then across the pond at Texas A&M (BS Agricultural Economics) and Cornell (MS Business Management). It was on this sojourn to the United States – one that was destined to last through the present day – that Andrew saw a business opportunity. Americans, after all, also have a history of living closely with the land. There was no reason, he thought, that European gardening products (and by extension gardening culture) couldn’t find a market here if he could make the introduction.

In the decades since, Andrew has devoted himself and his business acumen to this task. He was joined by his wife Kim in 2000, following her two decades as a staff reporter for the Austin American Statesman. Together, they’ve expanded Exaco into a national distribution business, selling quality European greenhouse and globally sourced gardening products through retailers in all fifty states and most Canadian provinces. Andrew’s strategic vision and European business connections, combined with Kim’s attention to detail, have proven to be a winning combination.

Following the COVID pandemic and the explosion of interest in backyard gardening that it generated, Andrew and Kim decided to open a greenhouse and garden showroom for their company in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville. Today you can visit Exaco at our new location, walk through 14 staged greenhouse models, and see many of our compost and gardening products in person. We encourage you to stop by and see us!