Tom Whittle with some of his Christmas trees

Denise Van Outen has switched on the lights on one. Model Lily Cole has posed in front of one. And thousands of visitors to the most famous football stadium in Britain have walked past another.

But what are they? Giant Christmas trees . . . and all grown here in Shropshire.

They say money doesn’t grow on trees. But one young county Shropshire entrepreneur has been seeing business boom this month thanks to his towering Christmas spruces and firs.

Tom Whittle founded and runs a company in Claverley called www.realchristmastrees.co.uk, which has become the UK’s leading corporate and large Christmas provider.

Specialising in trees from 10ft to 60ft, Tom’s trees can now been seen at high profile locations such as the Houses of Parliament and Canary Wharf in London, plus the Morrisons tree in the current television advert, featuring the likes of Top Gear’s Richard Hammond.

The company’s unique selling point is that Tom is in total control of the supply chain from root to room or seed to setting.

He manages the Christmas tree plantation in Shropshire, the online facility where customers place their orders to managing the direct delivery service.

Realchristmastrees.co.uk was born from five years working for his first tree business, the consumer site xmastreesales.co.uk, where he pioneered the mail-order approach to selling and delivering fresh cut, UK grown Christmas trees online.

He was only 19 years old when he saw a gap in the market where fresh cut real Christmas trees could be ordered and sold online with a fast delivery service.

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