Flower Consult

John Waddington

John is a Horticulturalist and has been in the flower and plant trade for over 30 years.

He was the first person to supply British grown flowers and plants to the major supermarkets, M&S, Waitrose and Tesco in 1984/85, before becoming the largest importer of Cut Orchids into Europe.

After selling the Orchid business in 2003, he spent until 2009 turning around the fortunes of a large flower grower on the South Coast, before becoming the Business Development consultant for a large, independent, Dutch flower exporter until 2014, helping them to change direction in the UK and generating annual sales of £12.5 million.

Since 2014 John and Claire have been promoting British Flower growers and wholesalers, developing their websites and running their SEO.

He helped NAFAS secure Gold medals at several Chelsea Flower Shows, and sourced all the flowers for their 50th Anniversary Flower Festival held in Westminster Abbey in 2009.

The astounding success of this show then resulted in him becoming involved with sourcing flowers for: Chichester, Guildford, Salisbury, Portsmouth and Manchester Cathedral flower festivals, over many years and raising millions of pounds.

He has also written numerous articles and appeared in several television documentaries about the flower industry for BBC TV and trade and lifestyle magazines.

Clair and John live on their beautiful boat on the South Coast

Claire Waddington

Claire attended Liverpool University where she studied English.

She then went on to become a freelance proof-reader, working for several prestigious publications before spending 18 years as a horticultural accountant.

She then spent several years helping the largest, privately owned Dutch flower exporter, change direction from supplying wholesalers to retailers via their on-line platform, for which she wrote the text and handled the enquiries.

More recently, Claire is looking after the accounts for wholesale flower company, Auction Direct Flowers, supplying Dutch, Imported and British grown flowers and foliage to large wedding and event florists in and around London.

She has an extremely good knowledge of the UK flower industry and has developed some very valued and influential clients.