Brexit Brings a Mixed Bouquet for the British Flower Industry

It's another overcast Monday in Walthamstow, 10 miles north of central London. Sitting in her living room full of flowers waiting to be delivered, Treea Cracknell asks her suit-clad husband in the kitchen to put the pasta to boil. Her son is late for his guitar lessons. Belle, her seven-year-old daughter, still in her school overalls interrupts the interview for the umpteenth time, wanting to be helped with a puzzle instead. Referring to the chaotic afternoon, the flower farmer jokingly says, "Mondays really are the Brexit of the weekdays, aren't they?"

She is close to describing the condition of the British flower industry in the run-up to the 31st October Brexit deadline. The industry, which has seen a whopping five-fold rise in flower imports between 1988 and 2016, has various players, both British and foreign. While some in the £2.2 billion industry are excited by the prospect of Britain leaving the European Union, many fear the clouds of uncertainty.

Ms. Cracknell voted to remain in the referendum of 2016. Brexit for her could have a deeply personal impact. "My epileptic brother could die," says Cracknell, pointing to the potential shortage of imported epilepsy medicines due to border checks that would follow Brexit.

However, when it comes to her flower business, it's a different story. "With the pound falling and cheap imported flowers getting expensive, the demand for British flowers will increase I suppose," remarks Ms Cracknell. Speaking for hundreds of other small growers, she adds, "Our prices might rise, and that would mean that we might just be making more money."

Four out of every five of these "cheap imported flowers" Ms Cracknell refers to come from the Netherlands. A third of these come from just one company, the Dutch Flower Group (DFG). Though the DFG claims to be a "family company" much like Ms Cracknell's, it exported flowers worth over £300 million to the UK in 2018.

Although these figures seem impressive, but the Dutch flower exports to the UK have seen a dip of 12% since the referendum. In an interview to Hortipoint, a Dutch online news outlet, Harry Brockoff, the chief financial officer of DFG, expressed his worries about the dropping sales. This has "everything to do with the exchange rate of the British Pound," he said.

Ever since 2016, Dutch exporters like DFG have borne the brunt of the falling pound, especially as they sell to British import merchants in pounds instead of Euros. But, Mr Brockoff warns that they cannot keep doing that "forever, of course."

At present, fresh flowers from the south of Amsterdam make it to wholesalers in London overnight, unimpeded by import duties or hard borders. There are no health or taxation checks either. According to Mr Brockoff, though, come Brexit the flowers would not be able to survive delays caused by inspections on the ferry.

With the massive proportion of imported flowers in the UK market, potential duties and a further fall in the pound would mean a price hike for the importing British wholesalers. Their clients, supermarkets and street florists, would in turn have to pay more. In the end, this would make flowers like cut roses, amaryllis and tulips more expensive for British homes.

Dennis Edwards, a veteran flower wholesaler in London, scoffs at the idea of British flowers filling the void created by expensive imports. "I think there's a bigger chance of me winning the Euro lottery," says the 70-year-old businessman. "British flowers are just 5-10% of what we sell here at [New] Covent Garden."

Mr Edwards is pensive about the looming Brexit. "I think we would have voted differently, had we known this chaos," he says. In close to four decades in the flower business, he has never seen such uncertainty - and the "massive amounts of paperwork" doesn't help. However, much like helping with the currency, the Dutch exporters have been helping the wholesalers with the paperwork as well. Mr Edwards is dependent on this and says, "I hope that will continue."

The Dutch exporters are not just the biggest clients of the British wholesalers, but in many cases, they are their only clients. For Mr Edwards, the Dutch flower exporters are "the masters" of the trade and losing their business will sting. Although, he would like to see more British flowers in his shop, Mr Edwards doesn't see that happening. "The British grow what they want, the Dutch grow what the customer wants. That's what we can sell here."

Ms. Cracknell does admit that the flowers she grows are "unusual." She is one of the 500 British flower farmers that form 'Flowers from Farm' (FoF). Unlike the commercial Dutch giants, FoF farmers collaborate to serve their individual customer's orders.

"Our customers are more affluent; they demand British flowers. They don't want their flowers to have a carbon footprint," explains Claire Brown, a member of FoF who owns a hilltop farm in Surrey. Ms Brown has gone from selling flowers worth £4,000 to £ 70,000 in the last five years. Her success story is similar to many others who got associated with the organisation founded in 2011.

Asked about Brexit, much like Ms Cracknell, she is positive. "After Brexit, I seriously think people will switch to more sustainable flowers. People will want their flowers to come from their local farms instead of Amsterdam," says Ms Brown.

It is another matter that these "sustainable flowers" are likely to be far more expensive and attempting to plug a demand almost nine times their current output.

Holding an old iron bucket filled with the seasonal Dahlia, Ms Brown playfully says, "We might not be as big as the Dutch, but our infrastructure is different. And probably not now, but some day we'd be able to compete with them."

It is a vague hope that much of Brexit seems to hinge on.