Founded by husband and wife, Leanne and Brian Crowther, from a market stall in 2009, the company has since moved into a Telford-based, UK factory, with 40 employees, where its best-selling product is its Swiss meringues, using more than 200,000 eggs to produce one million meringues a day.
Plastic-free packaging
To celebrate its 10th anniversary Flower & White will be opening its factory to local dignitaries, the families of its employees and local community groups.
“We’re working on new concepts all the time and we will have a new addition to the bars and bites ranges coming out in July,” said Brian.
It was following a trip to France that the pair decided to create desserts and this year it re-launched its snacking range with sustainable packaging which is plastic-free and 100% recyclable.
“We don’t often have the time to stop and reflect on our own story, but when you look at where we are now, I think we can be extremely proud of what we have achieved,” said Brian.
“We literally started off in our garden shed separating eggs by hand, gently heating the sugar and adding natural flavourings. Now we’re selling our meringues all over the world and there’s still more to come.”
The Flower & White journey did not start with meringues. While living in London, Brian had grown tired of weekend working in restaurants and decided to become a stay at home dad while Leanne went back out to work.
“He started baking cupcakes - the most amazing cupcakes actually,” said Leanne.
“We started selling them at farmers’ markets and all sorts of events around the country and we did really well, nearly always selling out.
“But we needed a more reliable way of selling so after a number of years we decided to launch as a specialty food distributor. It was so exciting and that was really the start of what we are now.”
Swiss meringue
It was on the stomping ground of the farmers’ markets where Leanne and Brian started to focus on meringues.
“We wanted to do something new and exciting with the range and we were being asked for gluten-free options an awful lot by customers,” said Leanne.
“That was when we launched our showstopper in the form of our giant Swiss meringue. They started selling really well, but they weren’t the easiest product to work with so we had to think outside the box including careful packaging and adapting our baking techniques.
The Swiss meringue is still Flower & White’s best-selling product with a number of clever spin off products like drops and minis.
“We created a truly fantastic product range. Meringue bars and bite size pieces covered in Belgian chocolate and sprinkled with something to add texture and flavour. They’re very low in calories, indulgent and light,” she said.
The snackable range is now stocked in Selfridge’s, QVC, Harvey Nichols, and Virgin Atlantic flights.
