Florist News

Dear Tony, why don't fresh flowers have a date stamp ( when they are cut)? all other fresh edible produce has a best before??? I can't be the only one wanting to know?

Cos it would take up too much time swapping the sleeves around every week

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Like...when supermarket stuff goes out of date....you think some of it doesn't get sent back to be repackaged and redated???

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u mean every month lol

but on a serious note its a huge problem with many wholesalers

the biggest problem is with late orders that one has to buy from some of the larger cash and carries in holland because at 2 in the afternoon they are the only ppl with the stock and often that stock is old and we dont know when it was bought.

I handle stock in differant ways if someone orders flowers in advance i will always use that days auction flowers (the only real exception being on certain wedding lines which i will often buy on a monday rather than tuesday auction, crystal blush calla for example will often be a lot cheaper on a monday) . At the moment i am sitting in the office working out my buy list for mondays auction for tuesdays orders and general stock requirement.

The problem is with my roling stock in the wharehouses u florists expect me to carry the stock risk for your shops a lot of the time, which means u want us to have everything all of the time . The way i look at it overall is in terms of stock value to turnover rate . I try to make sure that our stock value is never more than double our daily turnover. However we all know what its like on a normal week i would expect to sell about a 1000 red roses a day but some weeks for no real reason red rose sales drop off and we have too much stock so i will have bought for the following day when i dont need them. What i do is "hide" that fresh stock and sell roses that are a day older than they should be. the only alternative is to increase margins . The other really important thing is to be honest with customers about the age of stock (and i dont mean when things are just a day old lol)and not to keep cold stores too cold to hide the age. I find that if u cold store roses they look perfect for ages but 2 days later are crap . The same roses kept at about 12 C look slightly open after a few days but still have good vase life and are perfect for funeral work.

i just wish i could just sell ordered flowers then my life would be easy lol

hi tony, thats really interesting what you have said here, but just wanted to make a point about your thoughts quoted...
The problem is with my roling stock in the wharehouses u florists expect me to carry the stock risk for your shops a lot of the time, which means u want us to have everything all of the time .

Us florists also have the same problem too- our relay companies also expect us to carry the stock risk in order to fulfil their orders! We can appreciate your problem!

Ditto.......

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get your own thoughts fly...

My god...i just realized...did i actually agree with you on something...sorry, i take it back...how could i fall for that one....what i meant was

(-) ditto

that means opposite to whatever you said which was probably just a load of waffle anyway.

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Do you have such a thing as a leek waffle

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I think we both know theres no such thing as negative ditto. or leek waffles to that matter. although...... sounds quite nice doncha think?!