Flower Farming Business Masterclass

Our flagship class - The Flower Farming Business Masterclass - is a comprehensive course of study for any grower who wants to develop a thriving business growing and selling cut flowers. This course brings together years of Cel Robertson’s horticultural and business experience to help you with strategies to grow your agroecological business with environmental and financial sustainability.

Whether you are a new or more experienced flower grower, the Flower Farming Business Masterclass has been developed to give you the planning tools you need to develop your enterprise in a way that aligns with your own values and sets your business on a foundation that allows you to grow in a sustainable way. The main objective of the course is to help the small-scale grower improve the productivity and profitability of their business.

The course covers a range of topics required for the development of a sustainable business model, with learning grouped into three modules; Business Planning, Production Planning, and Profitability and Pricing.

Module 1 - Business Planning

In Module 1, we focus on the systems and processes required for effective business planning. From analysing our values and understanding how to use this to develop brand affinity, to setting specific goals and targets for ourselves and looking at the steps we take through the marketing process - we’ll cover all of the aspects of formulating a plan of action that fits with your life and ideals. We’ll also look at practical tasks such as cash-flow forecasting and setting financial targets with ready-made templates for you to download and use as a guide for your own business planning.

Module 2 - Production Planning

Module 2 concentrates on the practicalities of small-scale flower production for agroecological growers. We look at what sustainability actually means for growers whilst investigating strategies for managing your production efficiently; understanding the importance of variety selection for your sales market; calculating quantities for production and record keeping; and look at practical cultivation techniques to improve quality, production rates and profitability.

Module 3 - Profitability and Pricing

In the third and final module of the course we examine the complexities of calculating our small farm production costs and look at strategies for profitable pricing. I’ll teach you how to run a Crop Enterprise Budget which is a key tool we all need to use in order to take the guesswork out of pricing! Understanding how to calculate potential yield, knowing the factors that affect crop profitability and using record keeping tools to effectively analyse and evaluate your production are all skills the small-scale grower requires in order to generate an income from their enterprise.

If we truly want to create livelihoods in a thriving, growing industry, getting to grips with the figures is the key to ensuring financial sustainability for our flower-growing businesses.

The course is taught in person by Cel, and takes place over three sessions via Zoom. Working through the course modules in small groups allows for lots of questions which is one of the benefits of face-to-face teaching over remote learning. Every session is recorded and each course participant receives a copy of their class recording to watch back at their leisure.

Each module comes with a digital course book, and a set of templates which are available to download; these can be used as a guide for setting up systems for analysis for your own business. Once the course is completed each participant also receives an invitation to join our Facebook Group where the information sharing continues!

COURSE DATES FOR 2025

GROUP A: 3rd, 10th and 17th February 2025; 9.00-11.45 GMT

GROUP B: 3rd, 10th and 17th February 2025 13.00-15.45 GMT

Dates for November 2025 will be confirmed in April 2025

Investment: £350.00 per person

Over the years, growers from all over the globe have attended my business course - from all across the UK and Ireland; from countries in Europe such as Belgium, Czechia, France, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden; growers in Canada and the United States across time zones and hardiness zones from Alberta to California, Texas and the Carolinas; and growers as far away as New Zealand - half a world away!

Testimonials

“Genuinely the most informational and truly knowledgable course out there! Worth every penny and more. Great balance of nitty gritty detail paired with relatable examples and extremely well built and functional spreadsheets to kick start your own data analysis. Thank you for always making yourself available for all the extra questions!”

Kate, Somerset

“Cel's clear vision and communication about how she runs her business has provided me with the materials to move my business forward and formulate a clear plan for future business strands.”

Treea, London

“I absolutely loved the course. The three sessions were content packed but not overwhelming. I felt that you really distilled down and explained the essentials of how to run a successful and profitable flower business. It was so interesting and I learnt so much. Your spreadsheets are incredible. Really grateful for the opportunity to learn from you, Cel, and it was worth every single penny. Thank you!”

Fiona Strachan

“I absolutely LOVED the course. The business module was specific to flower farmer which I found so much more helpful than generic business courses I have done. The process to work out price per stem for each crop based on actual cost of production to ensure we are pricing right is invaluable. We also feel more confident planning our new growing space and thinking more strategically with things such as path and bed spacing, also making things uniform to help with data collection and analysis.”

Megan, Derbyshire

“It gave me a clear vision about what I should do for the farm, in terms of business management. I am not sure I will be able to implement all of them but now I know how it looks when you are really "figures" oriented. Thank you for all your time and what you've shared.”

Marlène, Périgord, France

FAQs

Is this course for me?

If you’re serious about creating a livelihood by growing and selling cut flowers then this course is for you! It is a business-focused course of study for growers aiming for financial sustainability, so whether you are a beginner or a more experienced grower looking to take your enterprise to the next level, there is plenty of guidance to help you devise a plan of action for your business.

What happens if I miss one of the sessions?

Every session is recorded and the recording of the class is sent to each participant at the end of the day. Recordings are sent via WeTransfer and are available for download which means that each participant has a recording of their classes to keep forever; so if you are ill or have something unexpected happen which causes you will miss a class, you will still receive a recording of the session so you can catch up on the day’s teaching.

What will I receive on the course?

Every participant has access to three in-person Zoom sessions with Cel; the recordings of their classes to download and keep forever; a digital course document for each module; a digital Resources document; spreadsheet templates for for business planning, production planning AND my exclusive Crop Enterprise Budget sheet for calculating production costs and pricing; access to the Facebook group for participants of the course; AND a bonus group Q&A session on completion of the course (a one-hour evening session on Zoom - date tbc).