Flower firm to bloom again

Businessman Brendan Chambers is set to revive the Interbloem flower wholesale operation, which was forced to close earlier this year as a result of a €19 million land deal.

Last March, Mr Chambers, the original founder of the Carrokeel seafood business, put together a rescue plan for the high-profile Interbloem business on Dublin's Naas Road, which had been placed in liquidation.

However, the plan was halted after Interbloem's owners, the Duke family, agreed the sale of its premises for €19 million.

Mr Chambers will today launch a new flower wholesaler from a new premises in the Crossland industrial estate on Dublin's Ballymount Road.

The new business will operate under the "Beautiful Flowers" banner, which he used in the Interbloem rescue attempt. He will also be re-employing a number of the 51 workers from that business. It will supply retail florists.

Interbloem was one of the biggest wholesale operators in the State, and at one stage had a turnover of €20 million.

However, it lost a key contract with Tesco earlier this year at a time when it encountered financial difficulties.

Interbloem's owners, the Duke family, had hired Mr Chambers as a director consultant two years earlier.

He was granted a High Court licence to keep trading.

He relaunched it as Beautiful Flowers and put between €400,000 and €500,000 of his own cash into the business in order to keep it trading.