Award-winning global agribusiness Flamingo Horticulture Investments Ltd, which supplies hundreds of millions stems of flowers, individual plants and packs of produce for the UK’s major supermarkets and florists from its vast farms in Africa and partners around the world, has proved it is a growing business in every sense of the word – particular during the Spring.
The convergence of major calendar events – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and an early Easter, have seen an almost 1,000 percent increase in demand for its cut flowers and plants.
With the help of Coventry-based IPP, part of Pooling Partners, Europe’s leading pooler and manufacturer of sustainable wooden pallets, Flamingo exceeded 500 percent more than a typical week for its UK business on Mother’s Day alone.
The figure exceeded Valentine’s Day – its next busiest period – which recorded a 300 percent increase in the movement of spring blooms – while Easter will easily see a 250 percent sales boost as Flamingo meets its time target of 96 hours from cutting in Kenya to purchase in the UK.
Business is blooming for Flamingo Horticulture, the winner of the gold medal for the Great Pavilion at the Chelsea Flower Show in 2017, Business of the Year and Importer of the Year 2018 at the recent Biz4Biz awards in Hertfordshire, where the business headquarters is based. In September 2017 Flamingo acquired Butters Group Ltd, the flower and plant horticultural business employing more than 300 staff in Spalding, Lincolnshire.
“Between Valentine’s Day and Easter is our busiest time of year which is why we needed a reliable logistics partner to help us manage the volumes as well as expand the business,” said Gordon Young, Flamingo’s logistics and planning manager.
“This year we celebrate five years with IPP working across all of our UK sites, as they oversee and collate all of our movements from Spalding, Sandy flower sites and Stevenage produce site”
“We like the responsive nature of the relationship we have with IPP and having easy access to our account managers, who make sure we have a consistent supply of quality pallets when we ultimately require them”
“It is so important, particularly at this time of year when there were less than four weeks between Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day because of the earlier Easter”.
Phil Storer, UK and Ireland Director for IPP, said: “When you are a global business delivering time-critical and delicate items from across the world, you have to work in tandem with your customer to make sure there are no barriers to getting the product to market. This means planning, accurate forecasting and being available 24/7 to help troubleshoot and problem solve, if necessary.
“This requires having the kind of collaborative and transparent relationship that we enjoy with Flamingo. There is a synchronicity and mutual understanding that works. It’s not quite saying everything with flowers, but in business terms, it is the nearest thing we have to it!”
Source: Pooling Partners