Our latest operator putting New Covent Garden Market on the Map is Peter Green, co-owner of flower wholesaler Smith & Green (pictured below left with his son Jack). Peter celebrated 50 years working at the Market in May.

When was the first time you visited the Flower Market?
It would have been around 1967 or 1968, going to the old Covent Garden Market with my dad. I was just a kid, coming up from Surrey, and it blew my mind. It was the noise, the chaos, the buzz, just an incredible flurry of activity. I’d never seen anything like it before. It was alive and everything was happening in the streets around the Market. The move to Nine Elms was completely different. It felt more structured, more sterile, like working in a factory compared to what it had been. The old Market had something special. You could never really recreate that, but we learned to love it.

What was your first job working with flowers?
I started at New Covent Garden Market (NCGM) in May 1976. I still remember walking in on that first day and being hit by the smell. Almost everything was English grown back then. There’d be rows and rows of stock, and the smell was unbelievable. Even now, if I smell certain English-grown stock, it takes me straight back to that exact moment and connects me instantly to a memory.

Working in the Flower Market wasn’t the plan at all, I was supposed to go into the Fruit and Vegetable Market because that’s what my dad did. But because of his working hours, he said he’d get me a job in the Flower Market to start with, just until I could sort myself out. I didn’t want to do it at first, but after a year everything changed. I settled in, made friends, found my feet, and started enjoying it. It became my world. I even had the opportunity to move over to the fruit side as I had a job lined up. But by then I’d built a life in the Flower Market. I had mates, we were going to football together, socialising and I just thought, ‘Why would I leave this?’ So, I stayed. And that was it. I never left.

What was your first business?
I worked my way up over the years. I started out as a porter, did that for about seven years, and then I got offered a job as a buyer at A Chapman Ltd, which was a step up. More responsibility and a bit more money. I’d had enough of lumping stuff about by then!

Eventually, the owner retired and I wanted to take the business over. I was ready for it as I’d been effectively running things. But he’d made an agreement with someone else years before, and he stuck to his word and wouldn’t sell it to me. I stayed on for a couple of years under the new owners but I knew I wanted to do my own thing. Then a big customer told me that if I moved, they’d come with me. That gave me the confidence to take the plunge and, in 1991, I started on my own.

How did Smith & Green start?
I teamed up with Billy Smith, who I’d previously worked with. We complemented each other well. He was great out on the road, selling and building relationships, but he didn’t enjoy the paperwork side. I was the opposite, so it made sense to join forces. We started the business right in the middle of a recession, which wasn’t ideal timing, but we made it work. We built up quickly and had a good run for quite a while. There were ups and downs, though. Around 2004, when rail orders stopped and everything moved to road deliveries, I lost nearly 50% of my business almost overnight. It was a real shock. But I managed to pick up a strong customer, which kept things viable, and from there I rebuilt. I started focusing more on hotels and higher-end clients, and things began to grow again via recommendations. We started supplying the palaces and we’re delighted to be granted a Royal Warrant.

What’s changed the most in your Market career?
So much. The biggest difference is the flowers themselves. When I started everything was English and you got what was in season, and that was it. Now everything’s imported and you can get pretty much anything all-year round. It’s a completely different product to what it used to be. Even the way the flowers arrive has changed. Flowers used to come in boxes, now they come in buckets.

Then there’s technology. Back in the day, everything was handwritten: orders, invoices, statements. Now it’s all digital. The first time I saw a fax machine, I couldn’t believe it. I thought it was magic! And now you’ve got smartphones where you can do everything instantly. But tech has also made things less personal. People don’t phone up and chat anymore, they just email or send a message. You lose that bit of human connection.

There are also fewer independent florists now, less footfall, fewer customers walking through the Market. The entire structure of the Market has changed a lot.

What’s the secret of your success?
If I had to put it down to anything, it’s reliability and honesty. That’s what it comes down to. I take pride in what I do, and I care about getting it right for people. That personal touch still matters, even if the business has become more digital. When a customer asks me for something, I’ll always try and find a way to get it. I never say no. I’ll go and ask around, making the effort. I think that’s where I differ from some people. Some won’t leave their stand and if they haven’t got it, that’s the end of it. But I’ll go that extra mile. At the end of the day, if people know they can rely on you, they keep coming back. That’s what’s kept me going all these years.

Any plans for retirement?
I’m not even thinking about retirement at the minute. I'm very lucky that I have my son Jack working with me, who’s really got to know the business over the last 14 years or so. When we move to the new Flower Market site in 2028, that will be the point where I'll decide with Jack what we both want to do. I’ve got another two years at least!

And finally, what does NCGM mean to you?
It’s a way of life, there’s no two ways about it. It has been for a long, long time now. This place, and the road I’ve gone down because of it, has probably been the biggest thing in my life. Following the tragic loss of my beautiful daughter Molly, 11 years ago, it was the people in the Market who supported me and Jack and helped us through this devastating time.

The Flower Market is like one big family, the people here are the salt of the earth and, at times of trouble, are there for you. People always say you spend more time at work than with your family over your lifetime, and I think that’s true, especially in this job. But I’ve genuinely enjoyed it all.