Teamwork makes the dream work.
The Bristol Bloom Collective had their first meeting this week. We gathered in a cafe in Bluff City, TN, to discuss start dates, crop plans, and pricing while we drank our coffee from oversized black and white mugs. The folks who gathered represented seven cut flower farms from across Northeast Tennessee, all owned in part or in full by women. It was one of the least dramatic meetings I've ever been to in my life. Even an attempt at a vote over a policy was whittled away to a decision through polite conversation. It gives me a good feeling about the future of wholesale local flowers.
If you're not familiar with floral collectives, I don't blame you. This is a relatively new phenomenon popping up across the United States and beyond, the small flower farmers' answer to getting competitive enough to get into wholesaling to florists. The current model across the country is an import system that relies on farmers from California to Kenya to Ecuador. While it's miraculous that we're able to ship fresh flowers around the globe, the costs are unsustainable, whether the health of the workers exposed to the chemicals that make such miracles happen, or the emissions cost of the shipping itself. Plus, you can't ship classics like zinnias, dahlias, and cosmos, and those are becoming more in demand as whimsical cottage looks dominate floral design trends.
What the floral import system has going for it, at least from the perspective of a florist's bottom line, is cost and convenience. Bristol Florist Supply offers daily delivery and cut-rate prices. The flip side of that is the quality of the blooms ("They told me I should have factored in 30% bloom loss into my plans," one farmer-florist fumed today), their shorter vase life due to time spent en route, and less money spent equalling someone down the line (probably a lot of someones) not getting a fair share.
Local flowers can cost more for several reasons, including the cost of raising flowers, paying a fair wage to oneself and one's workers, and considering the other costs of being a small business. A farmer is rarely just a farmer. There's marketing to consider, processing the crop and delivering, and now the added bonus of social media pressure. It's a lot, and it can cause burnout at rapid rates, especially with crops that tend to attract hobby enthusiasts like flowers do. Not that there's anything wrong with turning a hobby into a business, unless it kills the joy of the hobby. We must protect our joy fiercely, and commodifying it is not the way to go.
That being said, it can be a lot of fun to elevate a passion like this. I enjoy the puzzle pieces of flower farming, trying to make each year better in both flowers and meeting customer expectations. What joining the collective allows us to do is more of the farming, less of the admin. Instead of seven farmers hunting down as many florist connections as they can, each competing for attention and sales, we now offer a potluck of options-- and delivery straight to their door. It may be only once a week, but those flowers are spending time in the florist's cooler, not in transit. Less stressed flowers last longer in the vase.
We're clear that we aren't trying to replace the flower importers in our area because we know there's demand for things like roses and "a hint of blue" all year 'round. Besides that, we simply can't grow the bulk required-- not yet, anyway. With the support of a steady wholesaling market, we can take bigger steps each year to make the florist industry in the United States and abroad more sustainable and healthier for people, their wallets, and the planet.
I hope you're having a cozy December. If you're already over it and dreaming of summer, I've included some considerations for garden planning. Remember you don't have to grow the flowers yourself, though, because you probably have a local nerd who's already in too deep and needs you to buy their flowers instead. And also remember that the winter solstice is this Saturday, and soon the daylight will increase again. In the meantime: enjoy your extended access to the moon and stars.
With joy,
Meg