Blog 1: Our British Cut Flower Industry 2023!

It was great news for our industry on the 20th June as DEFRA updated their data sheets with the 2023 stats. It was good, reassuring news for the British Flower Industry; the value of stems* grown and sold in the UK increased in 2023 in comparison to 2022 and fewer were imported and exported.

Edit 27/01/2025 I’ve seen some numbers used in social media posts over the last few days that clearly misunderstand these numbers. These values are for flowers at the point they enter the country or leave the grower. British Florists and traders will buy these and turn them into products and THAT turnover (with the florist’s added value) would represent the value of the British ‘floristry industry’. As far as I can see there isn’t published financial value for this.

In 2023 DEFRA have said that:

UK Production of Flowers and Bulbs was £179m

UK Export of Flowers and Bulbs £28.8m

Import Total for Flowers and Bulbs was £761.8m*

So the Total UK Value of Flowers and Bulbs in 2023 was £912m

(The maths:
£179m UK production - £28.8m Exports = Total British available to UK Market = £150.2m
£150m + £761.8m (imports) = £912m)

Please note: I am using the data of Cut Flowers, Foliage and Bulbs not just those of ‘cut flowers’ because there are anomalies in the data (due to differences in how its collected, see below) that mean this is the most accurate way to look at it. I have NOT included ‘all ornamentals’ however because that includes plants sold in garden centres and houseplants. Sometimes the Ornamental total is used for the size of the flower industry and this is inaccurate! (I suspect AI is to blame, but maybe its just lazy research.)

I have tabulated the data from the last 5 years below. ~
(Click the table for link to the DEFRA Horticulture Stats. It will open in a new tab. The data is available in an excel document, and is on 3 tabs. I’ve brought it together here for ease.)

We can see that the total value of UK grown flowers and bulbs has increased by over £50 Million in the last 5 years.

We can probably see the impact of the cost of living crisis and Brexit with fewer flowers (in value) being imported and exported in 2023 too.

British Flowers sales are often presented as a percentage of the overall value.

It is frequently quoted that in 2018 14% of Flowers sold in the Uk are British, which I believe was calculated and published in the Guardian in 2019. It was not released by DEFRA as a percentage. Despite stats for 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 this 14% stat is still being used. (Eye roll)

Were we to calculate the Flowers Production in the UK using these newly released stats, we would see that British production is now 21.4% of the total.

HOWEVER there are some very good reasons why we should NOT use these percentages!

The way that the import/export data is collected is different to that of British production:

• Data for Flowers and bulbs exported and imported comes from very precise import/export paperwork where duty is paid to HMRC.

• Data for British production is collected by a contracted party by DEFRA. They approach major stakeholders for the information. It is not a requirement to provide this data so is NOT CONCLUSIVE. Nor is it checked or audited.

Without any requirement to provide this data to DEFRA (in other areas this is a requirement and result of funding support) this data is not very reliable and substantially different to that of exports/imports data.

It's also important to recognise that this data does not include the value of stems grown by small growers like me.

It’s therefore not really possible to produce a reliable percentage… I personally don’t think the percentage is helpful. Especially if we’re going to continually quote an old one…

So how can we use these numbers?

Carefully! And with respect. I think there are three main points:

• What we can definitely see a trend in increased popularity of British Flowers. We can see British Flowers contributing an increased proportion of the value of the total flowers used in the UK. This is excellent, and really reassuring. This isn’t a ‘one off’ as the growth has been seen year-on-year.

• These numbers - and the problems that arise when trying to use them - highlight a really big strategic issue: How can we articulate the value of our industry and the economic impact of investment and support, when we can’t accurately define it! In order to protect these levels of production and develop our flower farms to increase the ratio of british:imports in future years, especially in the face of climate change, we need government support and recognition in line with other farming sectors. This means ‘we’ really need to develop an accurate system for collection accurate data.

• Despite a very visable and loud presence in the floristry world, small ‘artisan’ growers and farmer-florists don’t feature in any of the statistics and have a tiny financial contribution to the flower economy. The stats are the value of stems grown, not total turnover (which includes floristry etc) so were 1000 businesses to grow £20,000 stems (1000 stems a week during a full season at 0.80p) our contribution would be £20Million. Small but not insignificant. Do 1000 small artisan growers produce 1000 stems a week from mid March until the end of September????!!!! If our businesses are to be recognised and valued, we need to improve our data collection and be able to expain our contribution to the economy. We need these numbers and we need them to be calculated with a strategic purpose in mind (so accurately, uniformally etc) and we need an organisation capable of doing this on our behalf.
  

It’s great news for those of us committed to sustainable, seasonal floristry and the importance of British grown flowers, and raises some important issues for the sector too.