Spalding's Bridge Farm Group produced a record 1.2 million poinsettia plants for Christmas

If you have a poinsettia taking pride of place among your Christmas decorations then there’s a good chance it may have been grown close to home.

The Spalding-based Bridge Farm Group has produced a record 1.2 million poinsettia plants - a festive favourite - this year.

Although originally from Central America and Mexico, the poinsettia is regularly used in Christmas floral displays due to its red and green colours.

And a mixture of continual growth, shrewd business sense and production issues in the Netherlands - where poinsettias are often grown - has allowed the local business to think big.

“We’ve been growing them for a few years now,” explained Jen Richardson, marketing manager for the Bridge Farm Group.

“We’ve been gradually increasing the volume of plants we’ve been growing, so last year we did over a million and this year it’s about 1.2 million

“As demand has increased we’ve increased our volume.”

Problems with production abroad have allowed the Bridge Farm Group to fill the void this winter.

“There’s a Dutch supply problem, so obviously that’s increased the demand for UK grown poinsettias as well,” Jen added.

“It’s a market that’s still growing. There are some challenges this year with the cost of living crisis but at the moment it’s been going well.

“There’s certainly more capacity for UK-grown poinsettias. It’s an opportunity we’d like to develop.”

While many struggle with energy bills, the firm has managed to buck the trend with their biomass heating set-up - a renewable and sustainable source of heat.

“We benefit from our biomass heating and we’re not seeing the cost of energy increasing in the way other suppliers are,” continued Jen.

“We use is a waste-stream product from other industries so we’ve had no problems with supply and not seen the increase that they’ve seen with fossil fuels.”

The Bridge Farm Group, which employs around 170 members of staff as well as agency workers, supplies a number of businesses with Tesco their buyer of the poinsettias.

The company will turn its attention to growing tulips after Christmas until May, and ornamental flowers until the autumn.