We, Paul and Dirk Koppert, are both working for the family’s transport company, but we’re dreaming of a business that revolves around fresh flowers. Probably because we live so close to the flower auction in Rijnsburg.

Starting a new business together as brothers is always exciting. Fortunately, we complement each other quite well: Dirk has experience in the flower trade through a previous job in Germany and Paul worked at the auction in his teens. So we decided to simply go for it!

We started ringing around to flower shops in and around Huddersfield asking: do you mind if we drop by next week to show you some Ecuadorian roses? And whether it was because he thought we wouldn’t come, or because he was genuinely interested, the first one willing to host us was The Flower Shop in Lindley.

Back then, we didn’t own a lorry, so we loaded up our passenger car and hit the road! On the way, we stopped at every flower shop to tell our story and within two weeks, the business was up and running.

For the second trip, we hired a lorry and that’s how another Flying Dutchman was born. We named our company Geko Flowers, which stands for ‘Gebroeders (brothers) Koppert’.

During the decade that followed, the business grew and flourished. Until the recession hit and it became no longer viable to make rounds with our own lorries.

So in 2014, we decided to sell all our lorries and focus solely on the online shop. This new set-up allowed us to provide excellent customer service and our new wholesale outlet in Buckshaw Village, Chorley meant that our clients could now have deliveries of their flowers and plants six days a week.