Modern slavery statement

Why we publish this

The Modern Slavery Act 2015 asks large companies to publish a yearly statement describing what they do to keep slavery and human trafficking out of their business and supply chains. Flower & Glory is an independent florist, well below the turnover threshold that makes such a statement compulsory. We publish one anyway, in the same shape the Act asks of larger companies, because the flowers in our buckets are grown a long way from Sevenoaks and we would rather say plainly what we know, what we do and what we cannot yet see than say nothing.

Modern slavery means forced or compulsory labour, servitude, debt bondage, human trafficking and the worst forms of child labour. We will not knowingly buy from, work with or sell through anybody who uses them.

Our organisation

Flower & Glory is owned and run by Deborah, its founder, from the shop at 12 Blacks Yard, Blighs Meadow, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1DS, open Monday to Saturday, 9am to 5pm. We sell fresh flowers, everlasting flowers and homeware in the shop and at flowerandglory.co.uk; we deliver in our own van across Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells and send letterbox flowers UK-wide by DPD; and we run a flower school with workshops for the public and private groups. Our team is the owner, our florists and shop staff, and occasional seasonal help at Christmas, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day.

Our supply chains

Fresh flowers and foliage. Most of our fresh stock comes through one wholesaler, Tom Brown Wholesale, ordered through its Florisoft portal. The wholesaler buys from the Dutch flower auctions and from UK growers. Behind the auction sit growers across the Netherlands and, for many roses, carnations and summer flowers, farms in East Africa (chiefly Kenya and Ethiopia) and South America (chiefly Colombia and Ecuador). We do not buy from those farms directly and we cannot see every one of them. This is the longest and least visible part of our supply chain and it is where we think the risk is highest.

Homeware and everlasting pieces. We buy from six European makers: Terrace & Garden, Wild Planet Aromatherapy, Casa Grande / Wikholm Form, Sparta Decor, Sparta Statues and Chic Antique. Some of what they sell is made in their own countries and some is made for them further afield; where a maker publishes a code of conduct or a sourcing statement we keep a copy.

Packaging and sundries. Wrap, ribbon, boxes, cards, flower food and mechanics come from UK trade suppliers.

Couriers and post. Letterbox flowers travel by DPD, tracked. Parcel delivery is a sector known for subcontracted, self-employed and agency drivers, and we treat it as a risk area.

Services. Our card payments go through Stripe and Dojo, our email through Resend, our texts through Twilio, our accounts through Xero, and our website runs on Vercel with its database on Neon. These are large technology companies with their own published statements.

Our policies

This statement sits alongside our Supplier code of conduct, which every supplier is asked to accept, our Whistleblowing policy, which tells staff how to raise a concern about anything they see, including something about the owner, and our Equality, diversity and inclusion policy and Health and safety policy, which set the standard for how people are treated in our own building. We pay our own staff at or above the legal minimum, we do not charge anybody a fee to work for us, we do not hold anybody's documents, and everybody is free to leave with the notice in their contract.

Due diligence

Our due diligence is in proportion to a business of our size, and we are open about its limits:

• We ask each supplier to accept our Supplier code of conduct, which forbids forced and child labour, requires lawful wages and hours, and gives us the right to ask questions and, where the supplier is within reach, to visit.
• We ask our wholesaler what certification the flowers it sells carry. Flowers grown under schemes such as MPS, Fairtrade or the Florverde standard carry an independent check on labour conditions; we prefer them where the choice exists.
• We favour British-grown flowers in season, which shortens the chain and puts more of it within our sight.
• Before we take on a new maker we look at who they are, where their goods are made and whether they say anything about how. A maker who will not answer is not taken on.
• We keep our seasonal hiring in-house, so nobody works in our shop under an agency's contract we have not read. If we ever use an agency we will check that it is licensed where a licence is required and that the workers are paid directly.

Risk areas

We judge these to be the parts of our business most at risk, in order:

1. Cut-flower growing overseas, reached through the auction. Long hours in season, agency labour, recruitment fees and the exposure of a largely female workforce to unsafe chemicals are well documented in the trade. We cannot inspect these farms; we can ask, prefer certified stock and buy British where we can.
2. Seasonal and agency labour in the wider flower and packing trade, in the Netherlands and the UK, around the peaks of the year.
3. Couriers and parcel delivery, where subcontracting hides the person who actually carries the box.
4. Homeware manufacture, where a European maker may source from a factory we know nothing about.

We judge the risk inside our own shop to be low: our staff are known to us, paid directly and free to leave.

Training

The owner reads this statement with every new member of staff as part of their induction and goes over it with the whole team once a year. Staff are told what modern slavery looks like in a florist's world: a delivery driver who seems frightened or is never the same person, a worker who says somebody else holds their passport or takes their wages, a supplier price that is too low to pay anybody. They are told to raise it with the owner or, if the concern is about the owner, through the external route in our Whistleblowing policy, and that the Modern Slavery Helpline exists for anybody who would rather speak to somebody outside the business.

How we measure whether this is working

Each year, before this statement is reviewed, the owner records:

• how many of our suppliers have accepted the Supplier code of conduct (target: all of them);
• what proportion of our fresh stock, by spend, carried an independent certification, as reported by the wholesaler;
• what proportion of our fresh stock was British-grown;
• how many concerns were raised under this statement or the Whistleblowing policy, and what came of them;
• whether every member of staff received the induction and the yearly refresher.

The figures are kept with the studio's records and summarised in the next year's statement.

Approval

This statement was approved by Deborah, the owner and founder of Flower & Glory, on 18 September 2026. It will be reviewed and re-issued by 18 September 2027.

Signed: ______________________________

Deborah, Owner, Flower & Glory

Date: ______________________________

Questions and complaints

If you have a question about this statement, or a concern about anything in our supply chain, write to enquiries@flowerandglory.co.uk, telephone 01732 743419, or write to Flower & Glory, 12 Blacks Yard, Blighs Meadow, Sevenoaks, Kent TN13 1DS. If you would rather speak to somebody outside the business, the Modern Slavery Helpline takes calls from anybody.

Changes to this policy

Changes to this statement are dated and logged on the page where it is published, so you can see what changed and when.