Modern slaverystatement
Modern slavery is unacceptable, simple as that. We all have to play our part in stopping it and protecting human rights. Flying Flowers is a brand operated by Interflora, and each year we publish a modern slavery statement that explains what we've been doing to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in our organisation and supply chains.
Interflora's Current Modern Slavery Statement
This statement (this “Statement”) is made by Interflora British Unit and has been published in accordance with section 54 of the Modern Slavery Act 2015 (the “Act”). This Statement covers the financial year 1st January 2024 to 31st December 2024 and outlines the steps Interflora British Unit has taken to prevent modern slavery and human trafficking in its business, its brands and its supply chains. Unless the context indicates otherwise, the terms “Interflora,” “we,” “its,” “us” and “our” refer to Interflora British Unit.
The Interflora commitment to tackling modern slavery
This is our ninth Modern Slavery Statement and our Board of Directors (our “Board”) continue to lead Interflora’s activity against modern slavery, looking closely at our business, our partner florists, our direct supply chain partners and our own employees. We encourage all our people to take responsibility, not only for ensuring that we conduct ourselves in the right way and with respect for others, but also that we are aware of and are looking out for signs that any individuals we come across could be experiencing a violation of their fundamental human rights. If that happens, we want to make sure our people know what actions to take.
This Statement details what we have achieved over the last year as part of our fundamental responsibility to eradicate modern slavery from our supply chains, and looks ahead to our plans for next year, and the future.
Our organisational structure, business and supply chains
Interflora is part of the world’s most established and well-known flower relay organisation. We operate alongside third-party partners in the US and Europe. Via this combined network of partner florists, we are connected all over the globe, matching orders from consumers with a local provider near the point of delivery, wherever that may be. We also operate Flying Flowers which is a boxed floral delivery service.
The nature of our business model means that our flower & plant supply chains are diverse and geographically spread. Flowers and plants are commercially grown all over the world and transported into the UK, supplied to florists and packing houses either direct from the growers, or via wholesale supply chains. Most of the flowers and plants used to fulfil our orders will be sourced from Europe, Africa and South America. During 2024, we focussed on increasing the volume of British grown flowers used in our Interflora and Flying Flowers orders as part of our Purpose work to ‘Protect our Natural World’ and ‘Support our Local Communities’.
With respect to our Interflora network, in the UK and Ireland, our 900+ partner florists are all independent traders in their own right. They join Interflora to enable them to send and execute orders nationally and internationally. Our partner florists purchase their own stock of fresh flowers, plants and sundries to fulfil both Interflora orders and their own local orders. Florists can also purchase wholesale sundry items through our own Marketplace website, including both Interflora branded and unbranded items.
For our Flying Flowers business those orders are packed and distributed from our chosen flower and plant supply partners and delivered by our carrier partners. Through one of these supply partners we also deliver ornamental plants for the Interflora brand. These supply partners purchase flower, plant, hamper and sundry stock on our behalf in order to fulfil our orders. In addition to our flowers and plants orders, we also deliver hampers nationally through a third-party party hamper supplier.
Retail floristry has three peak floral events per year: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas. We recognise that these peaks drive a significant uplift in order volumes, increasing demand for short-term labour, particularly in our flower and plant supply partners. This results in an increased reliance on short-term agency staff in those locations.
Our Head Office is based in Sleaford, Lincolnshire and employs 185 individuals at the time of writing.
Our Policies and Risk Assessments
Agriculture and horticulture are high risk sectors for modern slavery both in the UK and overseas, and so we take care to work with partners that have robust policies in place both in the packing houses in the UK, and at growers and packers overseas, particularly in Africa and South America.
Our florists are all required to agree to comply with our Anti-Slavery & Human Trafficking Policy (our “Policy”) and our Supplier Code of Conduct as part of their onboarding process. As a condition of joining the Interflora network, the Code of Conduct requires the florist to commit to effectively addressing and preventing slavery and human trafficking within their business and their supply chains, and allowing Interflora to audit their business as required, or if an allegation of modern slavery in their business is made.
All third-party suppliers across all departments are also required to sign the Modern Slavery Code of Conduct before they can be set up as a supplier and start invoicing; this applies whether the supplier is a large, global organisation or a local sole trader. Signing of the Code of Conduct was made a mandatory requirement to our Supplier Due Diligence process from 2022 and has led to zero suppliers being identified in 2024 without a signed Code of Conduct on record.
Our flower and plant suppliers have their own Modern Slavery Act compliance programmes in place, not just for themselves but also for their supply chains, and due to their size, one of our flower suppliers during 2024 is also required under the Act to publish their own annual Modern Slavery Statement.
Their policies apply to those people and organisations further up our supply chains, requiring their suppliers to take responsibility not only for their employees but also for their contractors, sub-contractors, suppliers and agency workers to ensure they are all treated fairly and are aware of their requirements under the Modern Slavery Act.
In January 2024 we created a detailed Supplier Audit for those suppliers who we deem to be a high risk, either due to their geographical location or the sector in which they operate. The audit requires suppliers to provide information on:
- Employees profile (numbers/agencies/third parties)
- Employee rights, and workers’ awareness of policies
- Recruitment (focused on employee hours and contracts)
- Working hours, facilities/conditions and benefits
- Awareness of Modern Slavery risks & possible breaches in the wider supply chain
- Internal Modern Slavery Awareness - policies/processes/training
We developed this audit with the guidance of the Stronger Together organisation, and with assistance from one of our large floral suppliers who have an ESG team with detailed expertise in this area.
This audit was sent to five key high-risk suppliers to complete towards the end of 2024, four of which have returned the completed audits at the time of writing. In May 2024 we consolidated our flower and plant supply from two suppliers into one supplier. The supplier was required to undertake the new detailed Supplier Audit as part of this move.
We also ask some of our high-risk suppliers to share details of any environmental and social accreditations they may hold as part of our Supplier Due Diligence process, for example, Supplier Ethical Data Exchange (SEDEX).
Interflora holds several internal policies which guide colleagues in raising concerns about modern slavery:
Anti-Slavery & Human Trafficking Policy, Whistleblowing Policy, Disciplinary Policy, Diversity Policy and
Dignity at Work Policy. All policies are easily accessible via Interflora’s intranet.
Due Diligence
As outlined above, our Supplier Due Diligence process requires a signed Modern Slavery Code of Conduct to be signed and submitted before we can set up a third-party supplier in our systems. Implemented in 2022, this led to zero suppliers without a Modern Slavery Code of Conduct in 2023, and again in 2024. Very infrequently a supplier will decline to sign our Code of Conduct; we continue with our process to review these suppliers on a case by case basis, to either:
- approve businesses that are deemed to have their own robust modern slavery policy and/or
Statement; or - follow up on smaller suppliers to understand their reasons for declining, reassure on the rationale
and detail of the Modern Slavery Code of Conduct, and either get to a place of signing or decline to
work with the supplier
Whilst we continue to use this standalone Modern Slavery Code of Conduct currently, it has been incorporated into a wider Sustainable Supply Chain Charter which is due to be rolled out in 2025.
Within the Florist Services department, there is a team of Business Development Managers (BDMs) covering the UK and Ireland, who spend much of their time visiting existing Interflora florist shops, and onboarding new shops to our network. This team has undertaken our Modern Slavery training and all BDMs are aware of the warning signs to look out for, and how to escalate concerns to Head Office should they spot something concerning.
Our Product & Supply and Customer Experience teams spend a significant amount of time on site at our flower and plant suppliers throughout the year as part of our annual Product Development cycle, either through product development sessions, pre-production testing, or general review meetings. These visits are planned and will usually involve visiting the factory floor and interacting with staff on production lines. Within the Wholesale & Supply team we have a Supply Executive role that fulfils the main responsibility for our work on eradicating modern slavery in our supply chains
Reporting
We have a dedicated email address msacompliance@interflora.co.uk which can be used to raise concerns about modern slavery in our supply chains.
In 2024 we did not receive any contact via our email helpline to flag potential modern slavery risk, and nor did we identify any suppliers that we chose to cease trading with or declined to use. Should we receive any reports, they will be promptly investigated and acted upon appropriately.
In late 2024 we did receive a report via our Florist Services department from a staff member at an Interflora florist shop in England suggesting modern slavery was taking place due to late and non-payment of staff wages. This complaint was investigated but no modern slavery was identified in this case as key indicators of threat of menace or restriction of movement were not present; the owners of the business were spoken to with regards to ethical business.
Training
Our in-house video training course was distributed again in May 2024 for all new starters in the business for the preceding 12 months. The 30 minute video training course focusses on the following:
- Explaining the wide range of abuse and exploitation that constitutes modern slavery
- Identifying the high-risk areas for modern slavery in Interflora’s supply chain
- Describing who is at risk of modern slavery, and how they are trapped
- Reinforcing the Modern Slavery Act 2015 and defining its importance to Interflora
- Advising colleagues on the signs to look for that may indicate modern slavery is taking place
- Setting out clear steps on what colleagues should do if they suspect modern slavery
In total, 15 new starters were sent the training video, and 15 of the 15 (100%) completed the full course.Each year we consider refreshing the content of the video but decided that as there have been no material changes to the law or facts contained in the video, we will review the content again in a year’s time.
In April 2024 we ran a Human Story Brown Bag Lunch session for Head Office colleagues with Aké Achi, founder of Migrants at Work. The purpose of our Human Story Brown Bag Lunches is to raise colleague awareness around a multitude of different topics; in this case we asked Aké to share his lived experience of modern slavery, to help us raise awareness with colleagues about what modern slavery is, how it can happen, and the impacts his experience had on Aké’s life. The session was very well received and helped consolidate and enhance colleagues’ knowledge with the insight of an individual with lived experience.
In May 2024 our Head of Wholesale & Supply recorded a Podcast on Modern Slavery for Interflora’s Bloomcast channel, created for florists inside and outside of the Interflora network, and available on Spotify. The podcast episode will be launched in 2025.
Our Supply Executive attended Stronger Together’s ‘Effective Human Rights Due Diligence in Supply Chains’ course in May 2024.
We’ve continued to share posts about Modern Slavery with colleagues via our internal Viva Engage communication site, including general refreshers following our Stronger Together course attended in May, and ahead of Global Anti-Slavery Day in October. Regular sharing content of modern slavery news stories in this channel of communication helps to keep Modern Slavery front of mind for colleagues.
To mark Global Anti-Slavery Day in October 2024, we built further on our 2022 & 2023 activities where we placed 25 posies of flowers around Sleaford, our Head Office location, and surrounding villages alongside information cards detailing what Modern Slavery is, how to identify it, and what to do if you suspect it, including the Modern Slavery Helpline number.
We repeated the activity locally to our Head Office, and also opened the activity up to our network of over 1,000 florists which covers the majority of major towns and cities across the UK and Ireland. New for 2024 was that our colleagues were invited to get involved, meaning we were able to spread our awareness message much further afield as our colleagues commute in from all over the UK, including from Northern Ireland. Uptake by florists was low, but many colleagues took part and shared photographs of their posies in
place around the UK. Our furthest flown posy was Northern Ireland. Again this year we saw positive feedback shared on local social media about the activity, and a raising of awareness of the issue in local communities.
What’s Next?
In 2025 we will be reviewing and updating our Modern Slavery Code of Conduct we’ve had in place since 2015.
Whilst we spend significant periods of time at our most high risk suppliers, most visits are planned in advance. In 2025 we plan to do more spot checks and unannounced visits, and to engage in more worker engagement. This will include visits to some of the larger florist shops in our network.
We’d really like to see our Global Anti-Slavery activity rolled out into more locations around the UK & Ireland, and will be exploring further engagement and training activities with individuals with lived experience.
This statement is approved by the Board of Interflora British Unit date June 2025.
Lyn Davies
Director – Interflora Consumer
On behalf of the Board of Interflora British Unit
Interflora's Historical Modern Slavery Statements
Link to 2023 MSA Statement (https://interflora.a.bigcontent.io/v1/static/ModernSlaveryStatement2023)