by Sally Wiles – Flamingo Senior Account Manager

Towards the end of 2015 Flamingo Horticulture at Weston were given the huge of honour of being the chosen supplier to partner M&S in the production and delivery of a chilled hamper for the Patrons lunch on the Mall on June 12th, 2016.

For Flamingo this was a hugely exciting challenge involving Engineering, Operations, and Technical teams to enable us to maintain all ingredients integrity, at the required individual temperatures to deliver the perfect product on the day.

A 24-hour window ahead of production saw 40,000 sandwiches, 10,000 salmon mouse , 10,000 chicken Salads, 10,000 cans of Pimms and 10,000 mini pork pies arrive on site. An example of five of the 30 different ingredients that were consumed on the day.

We all had an early start of Saturday 11th , 4.30 am ! All teams pulled together and even with additional support from the Metropolitan police on site X-raying every basket before it left , production went very smoothly and the last Hamper came off the line at 18.30 that evening.

The sight of 12 clean and shiny M&S lorries leaving site in convoy to begin their journey down to London was a very special one.

A few of the team volunteered to help M&S on the final leg of the journey, the giving out of all the hampers to the guests. The torrential rain in the morning did not dampen spirits and with a bit of help from a much-needed poncho, we successfully delivered all the hampers from the individual stations up the length and breadth of the Mall. By 2pm that afternoon the sun began to shine as many members of the royal family including Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh came out to meet and greet all the very excited guests.

In summary, this is without doubt one of the highlights of my career and all at Flamingo are very proud to have been part of such a once in a lifetime event.

28.06.2016