The founder of Flamingo Horticulture, Richard Evans, has been knighted in King Charles III’s New Year’s Honours List.

The award recognises Evans’ contributions to business, sport and charity in both Kenya and the UK, where the flower, vegetable and herb supplier principally operates.
The company said the knighthood is testament to Richard ‘Dicky’ Evans’ “values of service, entrepreneurship, community, optimism, and resilience”, adding that many of these live on through the businesses he created, including Homegrown in 1982 and Flamingo Horticulture in 1994.

Evans said: “I could not be more surprised or honoured. I have been blessed throughout my life with the support of family, friends, and thousands of wonderful people with whom I have worked and played.

“I am deeply grateful to His Majesty King Charles for conferring this honour upon me. We both have deep rooted connections to Cornwall and to Kenya and I hope that this award will further highlight the beauty and strength of both lands and their peoples.”

Martin Hudson, who co-founded Flamingo UK with Evans in 1994, hailed his friend and former business partner’s achievements by saying: “Congratulations Sir Richard and Lady Evans, plus [children] Louisa, Emma and Ross, who have all played their part in creating a fabulous business that colleagues past and present remain most proud of.

“What a great business this continues to be, and despite its significant scale, it constantly evolves, stays resilient and relevant, and still feels like family.”

Evans’ connections with East Africa began after his undergraduate degree in Engineering at Kings College, London. He was teaching local engineers in Uganda to build UN-funded clean water systems, when two were killed in Idi Amin’s coup d’état of 1971. Evans was evacuated from the country, arriving later that year in Kenya.

In Kenya he used his water irrigation skills to improve the quality of fruit, vegetable and flower growing, and subsequently set up his own company, Homegrown in 1982.

Flamingo initially supplied Covent Garden Market with fine beans and strawberries. It subsequently became well known for supplying a wide range of speciality vegetables, prepared vegetables, roses and many other types of cut flowers to major UK supermarkets.

Along with Hudson, Evans then established Flamingo Horticulture – something he says he is extremely proud of, especially following the supplier’s continued growth and success. To this day, Evans is in regular contact with Hudson to monitor the company’s progress.

Evans is credited with substantially improving Kenya’s balance of payments and opening up market opportunities that created jobs and economic growth over several decades in the country.

Such was Sir Richards influence that former Kenyan president Daniel arap Moi appointed Evans chairman of the Export Promotion Council in 1992, charged with boosting Kenya’s foreign exchange earnings.

In 1996 he was awarded the Order of the Grand Warrior (OGW), one of Kenya’s highest honours, for his services to agribusiness.

With a heavy heart, and for succession reasons, Evans made the decision in 2007 to sell his interests in Flamingo Horticulture to James Finlays Ltd. He had already established the award-winning Hemingways Collection – a group of luxury hotels and travel businesses, for which he remains chairman. The business is headed up by his son Ross Evans as CEO.

Alongside his career, Evans played a lot of rugby. Growing up in Cornwall, he played for Mounts Bay Colts and Penzance & Newlyn Rugby Football Club, followed by the Kings College university team and then Rosslyn Park in London.

In Africa, he played in Uganda and then Kenya, going on to captain Kenya’s international side, known as The Simbas, and a combined East Africa team, known as The Tuskers. The Tuskers are an African equivalent to the British and Irish Lions.

Over several years in the 1990s Evans came to the financial rescue of Penzance & Newlyn RFC, now known as The Cornish Pirates, helping the club to rise through the tiers and become an established top 20 English rugby team.

In 2010 he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and passed on executive responsibility for Hemingways to his son Ross Evans in 2021, while remaining the principal shareholder and chairman.

It was Evans’ long-term championing of Cornish sport, culture and heritage that led to his investiture in 2013 as a Cornish Bard, and the awarding of his Cornish name, Morlader Pensans, which translates as ‘the Pirate of Penzance’.

Flamingo Horticulture pointed out that while well recognised in business and as a generous benefactor to Kenyan and UK sports, Evans is said to be extremely private about his wider philanthropy. It is only recently that it has emerged that he funded schools, individuals in need of urgent medical treatment, and the living costs of disabled or parentless children in the UK and Kenya.

During Covid, hospitality businesses were severely impacted and there was no furlough scheme in Kenya, but Evans ensured his staff at Hemingways were protected from redundancy at a substantial cost to his company.

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.