Flamingo won an array of prizes at the FPC Fresh Awards last Friday evening at The Grosvenor House Hotel in London. At the event, Flamingo Group International was named “Overall Fresh Produce Business of the Year” and Flamingo Horticulture won the coveted award for “Supermarket Floral & Plant Supplier of the Year”. These two awards reflect the hard work and tremendous contributions of all our teams.

To cap off a memorable evening for the business, our very own Martin Hudson was honoured with the richly deserved and highly prestigious “Lifetime Achievement Award”. As we know, Martin is a highly experienced and well-respected figure within our industry, with a career spanning 44 years. He is best known for his 25-year tenure at Flamingo Group International which he co-founded and helped build into the UK’s largest added-value grower and direct supplier of cut flowers, plants, and prepared vegetables.

Well done Flamingo. This shows that we really are making a difference in horticulture everyday!

Each year five students are picked from the community to attend the prestigious Adama Boarding School in Ethiopia, and, we are thrilled to share the news that this year: four out of the five students chosen were from the Sher – School, part of our Afriflora business in Ethiopia.

This represents a huge achievement for the school and the team in Ethiopia.

Sher school is located in the Ziway and is open to all employees children as well as to families in the local community. The school has a vision to be one of the highest rated schools in Ethiopia and this achievement is a significant milestone in helping them reach this goal.

A big thank you needs to go to the teachers, managers and support staff at the school, without whom none of this would have been possible. The hard work and commitment these colleagues enhances the lives of their pupils and communities everyday.

Thank you and well done.

Finally, a huge congratulations from all of us in the Flamingo group to Nafira, Fayyisaa, Eebboseen and Yooseef who have been selected.

In July we had the honour of hosting a visit to our Stevenage and Sandy sites with Ken Murphy, Group CEO of Tesco.

During the visit we gave an overview of the Flamingo group business: our history, strategy and CSR activity. We covered the evolution of our relationship across Produce, Flowers and Plants as well as taking the opportunity to present our strategic sourcing and marketing plans for the next 5 years. We used the Stevenage presentation room to mock up Tesco fixtures and show our products and vision for their respective ranges.

We received very positive feedback on both the business and the positive role we play in our communities in Africa as well as being challenged on how we work together to improve our service and our forecast accuracy

As one of the premier retailers in the world, Tesco are a key partner for the Flamingo group and to have been able to host the CEO of the business at two of our sites for the first time is a truly exciting moment for the business and one that we should celebrate together. None of the amazing things we do everyday would be possible without our people and the success of this visit is testament to the hard work and commitment of everyone in the business.

Please check out the video below from the team at Tesco about Ken’s visit:

We have all been experiencing very challenging times, but at Flamingo Group International we have been working hard to do the right things for our people, our customers and communities around the world. We’re proud of our collective efforts to date in helping provide vital food supplies as well as support and flowers during the restrictions of this Covid-19 pandemic.

Here are a few examples of our actions and successes during the lockdown;

• We have implemented strict social distancing measures and improved hygiene procedures across all our global sites to protect and care for our valued workers.
• We have provided all our Kenyan staff with additional masks, with free daily food and salary support for teachers unable to work in our communities.
• We have set up a £100,000 fund in conjunction with Fairtrade and our customers so that we can provide emergency food parcels if life in Kenya is further restricted.
• We were greatly honoured to assist the Kenyan President in delivering a message of hope and support from Kenya to UK NHS workers when we packed and delivered “Flowers of Hope”. This very kind gesture was supported by the British High Commission, The Kenya Flower Council and KEPSA.
• As a result of keeping our facilities operating, Flamingo are currently employing 8,500 Kenyans and supporting & feeding 28,000 people daily (including dependents).
• The UK business has helped provide uninterrupted supplies of vegetables & flowers to the British people.
• We have transformed our UK operation with highly successful direct mail sales of vegetables, flowers and hampers, reflecting the flexibility of our end-to-end business.
• We have donated our excess flowers from Mother’s Day to local church funds raising £1,600 and we have supported local NHS staff with thousands of free flowers.
• In Germany, all the PPE masks issued to staff have been manufactured locally to support businesses and charities in the area.
• In Holland, we gave each member of staff a bouquet of flowers at Easter to say thank you for all their efforts at this challenging time and we have launched a campaign to donate flowers to the elderly in our local area.
• The Dutch operation also agreed a considerable financial contribution to the local government in Ethiopia to assist them through this Covid-19 pandemic.

Kenya Growers Donate Flowers to UK NHS Frontline Health Workers Fighting COVID-19

Nairobi, 30 April 2020

Flowers of Hope – Kenya wants to bring some joy and show solidarity with frontline health workers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Following the launch in Kenya, the initiative has been expanded to the UK where Kenya’s World renowned flowers are a prominent feature on the shelves of all the major supermarkets.

Kenya grows and exports annually over 180,000 tonnes of flowers to international markets, mainly the UK and Europe. This is equivalent to just over 5 billion stems of flowers.

Production is regulated through compliance with the internationally benchmarked Kenya Flower Council Standard to ensure sustainable social, environmental and agricultural practices.

The industry directly employs close to 200,000 people, of whom half are women, and impacts the livelihoods of families and many others employed in the formal and informal business sectors.

The international floriculture industry is a complex and highly integrated supply chain. When the COVID-19 pandemic took a hold in international markets and particularly in Europe, flower shops closed, and restrictions were imposed that resulted in a dramatic fall in the demand for flowers.

In the UK, where Kenyan flowers feature prominently on the shelves of all the major supermarkets, the stores have remained open and our flowers continue to bring hope and brighten the lives and homes of customers in these uncertain times.

Flowers of Hope – Kenya is an initiative of the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA), of which the Kenya Flower Council is a member, that creates the essential link between the private sector and the Kenya Government.

The initiative appreciates the massive contribution made by front line health workers in fighting the pandemic in hospitals and health facilities in Kenya and in the National Health Service Hospitals in the United Kingdom. The donation is endorsed by HE Uhuru Kenyatta, the President of the Republic of Kenya, who has added his personal message of goodwill on every bouquet, that “we stand together” in fighting the pandemic.

Following the successful launch of Flowers of Hope in Kenya, 200 hundred bouquets designed by Flamingo Horticulture Kenya Ltd with flowers from their Naivasha farms where they were put together by Wilkster and her team of ladies using the special sleeves provided by Elgon Chemicals Ltd.

The bouquets were flown from Nairobi to the UK by Kenya Airways on board a B787 Dreamliner aircraft normally occupied by happy tourists returning from a memorable beach and safari holiday in Kenya but now adapted to carry freight to support Kenyan horticultural export businesses.

On arrival in the UK the bouquets were conditioned at Flamingo Horticulture UK Ltd.’s cold rooms in Sandy, Bedfordshire from where they were delivered by Rhodes Freight Services to six hospitals all dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Great Ormond Street Hospital, London
• Salford Royal Hospital, Northern Care Alliance
• Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust