Moulton Seas End grower Matthew on M&S advert

A Moulton Seas End grower will be seen on screen by nearly 40million people thanks to a national television campaign.

Matthew Naylor, managing director of Naylor Flowers, can be seen on a new advert for M&S, speaking of his love of the sunflowers he grows, as part of the ‘fresh market update’ campaign.

If you pick up a gorgeous bunch of sunflowers from M&S, there’s a good chance they have been grown by Matthew and his team, who will supply the supermarket with more than two million stems this year alone.

Matthew said: “We grow 14 different flower varieties on the farm but our sunflowers have one of the longest seasons.

“All the cropping is done by human hand and eye, and we have a fabulous team on the ground ensuring that all our blooms are cropped at precisely the right time to deliver the best-quality to our customers.

“We supply the Sunrich
variety to M&S, which we love for its deep yellow colour and neatly-shaped petals and our partnership with M&S is really special; as a business we not
only look to contribute positively to our local economy but also to the natural landscape around us, a vision shared by M&S.”

Speaking in the
advert, which will be seen by up to 39million viewers across the country, Matthew, who is joined by M&S senior horticulture technologist Kathryn Camps, tells of how the flowers represent ‘cheerfulness and sunshine’.

Filmed in a Naylor Flowers field in South Holland, the
advert explains how the Naylor family team, which has been farming in our area since the 1940s and has been partnered with M&S for 20 years, cuts each flower by hand.

This year, as sunflowers begin to bloom, the team will be looking to crop up to 5,000 stems a day – all harvested by hand to ensure they are cropped at exactly the right time and quickly put into
water in the field once harvested, to preserve their quality.

The family firm has also been working to ensure the process is as environmentally-friendly as possible.

Matthew said: “Having farmed on this land for three generations, we are constantly exploring new and exciting ways to become more sustainable and operate in harmony with the environment around us.

“We have invested heavily into renewable energy and are working hard to reduce our use of plastic and fuel levels to help lower our emissions. It’s so important that we celebrate the environment and we’re always looking for innovative ways to produce our cut-flowers.”