Slow Flowers Industry Insights & Trends

Big wire services and mass retailers embrace LOCAL flowers.

At least one major wire service has decided there is demand for local, American-grown flowers and now has a dedicated page for its Homegrown Collection, with the tagline: Thoughtfully gathered and locally grown on American farms.

Good news! It's likely just the start of mainstream channels recognizing that the Slow Flowers Movement is a cultural shift, not a passing trend. The question now is: Can shoppers actually find these options?

Right now shoppers have to search for terms like "local" or "American grown," and the page took some hunting to find. Wire services and online sellers should go much further and make their local and American-grown bouquets easy to find and buy.

Mainstream includes grocery stores, too. Local flowers are still a small part of supermarket floral sales, but there's lots of room to grow.

A regional floral buyerfor a national natural foods chain in the Mid-Atlantic says buying locally fits the chain's overall philosophy. The chain features local flowers in season: its top year-round item, tulips, comes from Virginia and New Jersey, and summer peonies and sunflowers come from farms from the Carolinas north to New York, moving north as the weather warms.

Regional buying lets stores target signs and labels and helps staff know their products, all aimed at helping shoppers make informed choices.

The buyer says the chain prefers to source very locally, close to its stores, that many team members have visited their local farms, and that new local farms are added each year while longtime partner farms keep adding new flowers.

Grocery stores account for a large share of retail flower sales, so the best thing flower farmers can do is remove the obstacles that have made grocery buyers wary of local and domestic farms. Consistent quality, reliable communication and great service give local farms an edge over imports.

With a huge global trade in cut flowers, a big share of it headed to the U.S., it's easy to think the whole world is our flower field.

In many parts of the country, wholesale florists are the only commercial source of cut flowers and foliage for designers, shops and studios. But after marketing themselves as the gateway to flowers from everywhere, some wholesalers are partly going back to their roots, actively buying from American flower farms of all sizes to fill their coolers, and many now label where each product comes from.

The boom in farmer-florists and small-scale flower farming across North America has likely been driven partly by frustration with how little local product conventional wholesalers carried. To put it plainly: Farmer-florists and small flower farms filled the gap left when wholesalers ignored local growers. Now wholesalers are waking up to an opportunity they nearly missed.

This ties closely to #2. The conventional wholesale model is shifting as traditional distribution gets disrupted, and more flower farms are likely to find new ways around the mainstream pipeline to sell directly to florists and consumers. It's a hot topic, and few wholesalers are willing to talk about it on the record.

A recent survey of Slow Flowers members showed many sales channels opening up for flower farmers. Most member farms are small, but they're showing how diversifying and selling direct to florists can work. Asked where they sell, respondents most often named three outlets:

• Most grow flowers for their own wedding and event clients.
• Nearly as many sell directly to other florists and wedding designers.
• About half sell to local flower shops.

Fewer sell through farmers' markets and CSA subscriptions (selling straight to consumers), and a smaller share sell to local wholesalers and grocery buyers.

If you go only by mainstream financial reports or census data, the outlook for brick-and-mortar flower shops looks grim.

Industry reports show the number of U.S. flower shops has fallen sharply since 2000, and the Society of American Florists has predicted that retail florist numbers will keep dropping, though more slowly.

Bad news? Not for the Slow Flowers members opening brick-and-mortar shops across North America.

Anecdotally, flower power is growing: independent, forward-thinking florists are signing leases and opening shops in the same markets where traditional mom-and-pop florists have closed. These new florists want to connect with, and buy from, local growers.

Farmers and florists around the country are forming their own alliances for selling, marketing and promotion, and the result is more local flowers reaching more people.

When Slow Flowers members were asked whether they belong to a regional network of flower farmers or florists, a sizable share said yes, and many others said they wished there were one nearby.

It's easier than ever to start one; they seem to be popping up everywhere.

Recent examples include the Maryland Cut Flower Growers Association, the Pacific Northwest Cut Flower Growers, the Greater Seattle Floral Association, the North Bay Flower Collective, the California Cut Flower Commission, New Orleans Flower Growers Association, the Southern Flower Collective, Hudson Valley Flower Growers Network, plus networking groups in New England, Denver, Pittsburgh, Raleigh-Durham and upstate South Carolina, led by Slow Flowers members.

Why? Members of these groups consistently name networking as the top reason for forming, followed by marketing and promotion and the chance to create a shared sales and transport hub.

Going well beyond a seasonal U-pick visit, flower lovers are being drawn to fields, shops and studios for creative, inspiring experiences and beautiful flowers.

Garden and home tours have long been popular because they give design and plant lovers a peek inside private homes and gardens.

Now flower farms are joining in with what you might call floral tourism. Students at a recent 3-day floral design retreat and workshop in Washington stayed at a Whidbey Island winery, mixing rest and wine tasting with floral lessons.

Elsewhere, guests can rent a glamping tent at a Flowerstock gathering on a Virginia flower farm.

Or there's yoga on a flower farm, an annual festival held by an Iowa flower farm family, one of the most creative agritourism events on a flower farm. Their small biodynamic family farm raises bees, heirloom fruits and vegetables and heritage animals as part of a local whole-food system. The community celebration draws yoga and flower fans from around the region, and though it's a lot of work, it builds strong relationships with customers who come back for other events, workshops and flowers all year.

Next Up

There's more to the forecast, covered in a deeper look at new color palettes and shapes!