What is the background of Greenisland Flowers and its parent company, Donnelly Horticulture?

Donnelly Horticulture is a corporate business in North Armagh comprising three firms - Derrylard Nurseries Ltd, Tennelly Products and Greenisland Flowers.

Derrylard Nurseries was the original business, and today is a 60-acre farm growing and packing a range of lettuces. My father Seamus and I are the proprietors of this firm, which supplies retailers and wholesalers in the Northern Irish market.

Tennelly Products, which supplies polythene structures, was started by my father and Eamon Tennyson in the 1970s, and started trading under its current name in 1986. I came on board in the 1990s, with a diploma in horticulture from Warrenstown College. Tennelly is an agent for Fordingbridge plc, BPI AGRI, Bosta Ltd and Woosung Hitec Co Ltd, which specialise in polytunnels, polythene structures, irrigation systems and ventilation controls respectively.

I founded Greenisland Flowers in 2004. The year before, in partnership with Greenmount College of Agriculture and Horticulture, we experimented in growing stock as a cut flower, to assess whether we could extend the season of this difficult bloom.

Stock flowers tend to be summertime flowers, because although they can be grown all year round, they are very difficult to transport. The summer of 2003 was really warm in England, which standard stocks do not like. While growers in England had their production wiped out, we did not, and Marks & Spencer came to visit our production.

In 2004 we won an order from M&S to fill in its shortages throughout the season, and also to extend its availability into late August. By 2005, this had extended into late September.

After our first year of full commercial production, we sat down with M&S and set out a plan of action for 2005. During this meeting, we found that there was a great shortage of supply during the month of June, which needed filling. With detailed programming, we found that Greenisland Flowers could fill this gap in production for the whole of the UK market.

How has the business progressed since then?

We now work with Flowerplus, which is part of Flamingo Holdings, and it supplies M&S and other outlets for us.

In 2003 we trialled 30,000 stems, and this figure went up to more than 600,000 stems in 2004, which was our first commercial year. Today, we actually grow 1.6m stems annually. We could in fact easily double that volume, but we just do not have the space.

What are the advantages of growing stock flowers in Northern Ireland?

Stock flowers are usually in season from April to July, but ours are available from May to October. To my mind, there are three real advantages to growing stocks in Northern Ireland.

The first one is the climate. Not a lot of people realise that we have a Gulf Stream coming right over us in Northern Ireland, which can only be felt to a certain degree in England and Wales, and as a result we do not have extremes of temperature - the minimum cold spell we might get is -5oC, and the warmest it might reach is 25oC. This makes perfect conditions for stocks, which like to be grown at around 18oC - not too warm, and not too cold. All flowers seem to thrive in these conditions, for example lilies. This means that we can extend availability well beyond the English season.

The second advantage of growing in Northern Ireland is that we are only a boat ride away from the UK market. Transport is one of the biggest issues with supplying flowers, and the closer you are to your target market, the better - both from an environmental and cost-saving point of view. We are also only a boat ride from the Dutch market. The Irish flower market is nearly 100 per cent imports, so that means there are lots of trucks, for example from the Netherlands, going back empty. We are now back-hauling, sending our product back in trucks that have been bringing flowers or other products over here.

The third advantage of supplying flowers from Northern Ireland is the quality we can produce here. Because of the generally cool temperature, we grow summer flowers only - not spring flowers, as these need to be forced with heat. This means that our flowers are grown in the exact conditions they should be, and are stronger and of better quality than when they have been forced.

Standard stocks have traditionally always had a poor shelf life, but we have found that growing flowers in the optimum natural conditions can even extend shelf life to 12-14 days. This is a big bonus for Greenisland.

Quality really is very important for us at the moment - the focus always used to be on price, but now even wholesalers are looking at better quality product, and are prepared to pay a little bit more to get our flowers, rather than cheaper Dutch imports.

What investments have you made into your facilities?

Last year we completed a state-of-the-art packhouse with two packing lines, an environment-controlled coldstore and a shelf-life room.

We pack everything on site so it can be sent straight to the retailers’ depots, meaning that Flowerplus sometimes never even sees our flowers. The advantage of operating the packhouse is that everything is now all in one place.

This year, we have also constructed an extra two acres of Spanish tunnels, not to extend availability, but to cope with production in July, which is the warmest period of the season, when crops need the most protection. Our whole farm now covers four hectares.

What did winning the Re:fresh award mean to Greenisland Flowers? What is next for the company?

It was amazing to win the Floral Business of the Year award. To be such a small company in a room full of Europe’s biggest businesses, and to win an award, was unbelievable.

Since then, things have got really interesting. Last year, we trialled a few new flowers, including Campanula and Eustoma, and buyers who visited us from the UK market were amazed by their quality.

I have also set up business with Asda in Northern Ireland, as the retailer orders locally and we supply its stores directly. I think 2008 is going to be a very good year.

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing flower firms in today’s marketplace?

The biggest challenge is producing a profitable crop. Margins are going down and down every year, and it will soon get to the stage where things will not be able to get any more efficient.

People always talk about volumes, volumes, volumes, but without profit, they are useless. This is a common theme across the flower industry. As far as I can see, a lot of growers who have been in the business for many years are now packing up and leaving. Around 15 years ago, there were 15 growers in Northern Ireland, but that figure has now gone down to three. Where does that leave the rest of us?

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