Elizabeth Van Niekerk, head of trading for produce and floral at M&S Food goes behind the scenes of the ongoing transformation of the M&S floral category and long-term partnership with supplier MM Flowers. The transformation is driving market share gains with over a million bouquets of M&S Valentine’s Day flowers sold.
“Nothing says I love you like a bouquet of perfect roses on Valentine’s Day.
This year, at M&S, we had our best Valentine’s yet in floral. We sold more than 1million bouquets, uniquely picked for Valentine’s Day, both in store and online. This year’s record-breaking response to our flowers is a testament to the trust our customers place in us to share the special moments in life.
Behind every exceptional Valentine’s bouquet is a great partnership – we’ve been working in closely with MM Flowers for over 18 years. Set up in 2006 by Phil Whelan, a former buyer at M&S, MM Flowers is our biggest floral supplier, providing cut flowers including roses, tulips, and exclusive trademarked varieties like our Peony Rose.
Accountant by trade, Phil had a love and passion for flowers and wanted to see more consistent quality available in the market to UK retailers. Initially Phil was joined by four others in a small site in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, and set up one single production line of red roses – exclusively sold to M&S. Now, MM Flowers operates 5 sites in the UK and the Netherlands, working with farms spanning over 3,000 hectares.
At M&S, our close relationships with suppliers is the force behind creating unique, exceptional quality products. M&S and MM Flowers have worked together for nearly twenty years, and we’ve changed the flower market by creating new varieties and using innovative production methods to ensure each flower is as beautiful as the last. We work directly with breeding houses to carefully select and blend seeds which are cared for by expert growers before being picked and sent to a packing facility in Lincolnshire.
Customers come to us for flowers because they expect exceptional quality – from our £25 Freedom Roses (the biggest selling floral product this Valentine’s Day) to our trademarked Peony Rose. We’re now transforming the floral category to bring even more innovations to our customers: Last year, we relaunched M&S Flower Market with a new house style, including embossed message cards and box bows to create the perfect floral gift, both online and in store. Since launch, we have seen market share in flowers and plants grow from 16.3% to 17.1%.
We are on a journey to double the size of the Food business, and transformations in areas where we’re already trusted for our quality are brilliant opportunities to broaden our reach to new customers. In floral, we are continuing to find new ways to modernise while protecting the magic of M&S, from celebrity partnerships with Katherine Jenkins, Kelly Hoppen and Dame Joan Collins to bring new signature styles, to our pop-up florists in our renewed store in Cribbs Causeway, where customers can create their own bouquets.
Our transformation is never complete, and we have exciting plans to further develop our long-term partnership with MM Flowers to expand the channels we can offer M&S flowers and bring new and exclusive innovations for years to come.”
