Flash Report for Week 4

Important Valentine’s Day Deadlines

Flower Prebooks – Supplies

We started mailing out your purchase history for Valentine’s Day on Friday 1/8. Please look for it in your mail. Our Holiday prebook price list is out! Also, there is still time to order some Valentine’s Bouquets. These are made by DV in our Edison location and are great!

• Rose Prebook deadline is Wednesday 1/20
• All other flowers & greens the deadline is Wednesday 1/27
• Double up Standing order customers, the deadline is Tuesday 1/19
• This year we have a special discount program being offered on two of the Syndicate Sales glass flyers. The more you buy the more you save! Supplies are limited on colored glass. Don’t wait – order now

Novelty

• Italian grown items Poppies, Mimosa, Sweet Peas, and Ranunculus are having difficulties due to weather-related issues.  Production on these items out of Italy is very limited.
• Field Daffodil production will be delayed due to the cold temps in Europe.  We are usually seeing the first Fields Daffodil right about now. This year will be a couple of weeks later.
• Some varieties/colors of Peony are finishing up in Chili.  White is no longer available.  We will start with the Israeli Greenhouse Peony in the next week or so.
• Stock was again a challenge trying to keep enough colors in-house. All our growers had ample supplies of white. Next week seems a little brighter so far and we are hoping to be able to keep up with demand. 
• Larkspur will be scarce throughout January and February (similar to last year).
• There is still no California Hybrid Delphinium of any kind in the market. We are covering some of our needs from South America.
• California Snapdragon availability is still limited for next week. Casitas seems to be filling our orders when others can’t.  Yellow Purple Lavender and Orange remain difficult to find. Canadian colored snaps will be very limited again this week.
• Production of Matsumoto Asters has been very limited for the past two weeks. We were able to find a few light pink, dark pink, purple and red and a fair amount of 5 packs.
• Lily Growers have limited their production in order to remain profitable.  Bulb prices are going up, and farms must become more profitable.  Most farms are working on timing their production better than they have in the past.  Once again this week we could not come up with a Value Oriented box of Lilies for our Distinctive Value mailer.  From what we can see production will come back on for the last week of January, but pricing will remain above the previous 18 months.
• Veronica has been held and destroyed for the past 3 or 4 shipments from Holland.  Please stay away from it! 

Tropical

• The weather in Costa Rica has not only been cold and rainy but they have also been experiencing high winds.  This has caused some minor problem in regards to Anthurium, Birds and Calla Lily.  We where informed that the winds have damaged a good portion of the White Goddess Callas.  Our source was only able to ship our Standing Order.  As of right now we will see nothing additional in White Goddess for next week.
• There is virtually ZERO Stephanotis available from California, so please plan ahead since it is very limited. We do have some Canadian coming in.

Basics and Greens

• You have all heard by now of the freeze in Florida. The freeze lasted for 11 consecutive nights for many of the growers. Freeze-protecting the crops is costly and growers have done their best to protect the crops.  It is very likely there will be damage, but the extent is very hard to tell at this point. Prices are already creeping up and there is definitely a buzz on what availability will look like for the holiday.  Florida Leather and other ferns will be limited. This includes Plumosa, Springeri, Tree Fern, Ming Fern, etc. We will look to other sources to fill where needed.
• For the time being Carnations are plentiful.  This will begin to change towards the end of next week, as farms begin to hold back for the Holiday.
• Mini-Carnations are the same situation as Carnations, with the exception of farms being taken over by other growers. The new owners are leaning towards removal of Mini Carnation plants, and replanting other crops.

Roses

• There is lots going on in the rose market, but nothing too exciting for this week and next. Farms and Importers are gearing up for Valentine’s Day.
• This week’s “Rose of the Week” is Cream/Pink Duett which is a super color and coming from one of our Ecuadorian farms. This rose has a high petal count and opens really nicely.

Supplies

• Look for our new line of Lindt’s Lindor Chocolates, a PDF file is now available on www.dvflora.com.
• The Red Tapered Square vase #S14840 that 1-800 is using has been discontinued by Syndicate. However Giftwares has the same shaped vase in a translucent red, it is a much nicer vase #S14841. We have 80 cases of this in stock right now and 100 coming next week.  That will be all we are able to get for the Holiday.
• Get your glassware orders today, especially the color vases. Ask your sales associate about our special volume discount offer.

 Industry Info….

 The Weather

As you have been reading through this weeks report one theme keeps showing up – the weather. From the West Coast of California to Mexico, to the South East coast of Florida to the fields in South America, Costa Rica and Columbia and the Northern region of Canada to Italy. We are getting hit from all growing regions! What impact does this have on our industry? We should expect shortages of supply, limited color varieties, grading standards to be stretched to the limit and increased prices. It’s that old story, “Supply and Demand”.

Below is an example of one of the many communications our Product Managers are receiving regularly.

The weather forecast for California is not good. They are expecting 7 to 10 days of rain heavy at times. As Dan Vordale from Ocean View said “we need the rain badly but it’s not so great for sales. If the rain comes this will affect the Valentine’s crop of stock in the Desert. The growers in the Baja seem to feel they will miss the rain so my focus for stock will be mainly with the Baja Growers for Valentine’s Day.”

Apple-to-Apple Comparison

Probably one of the most challenging things in this industry is the ability to compare apples to apples. Due to the nature of our industry there are so many variables that add complexity to the basics of product comparison.  ou can take a named variety and the minute it leaves the hybridizer the variables begin.  There can be differences in the region that it grows in, the grower that grew it, the weather conditions that it was under, the stage that it was cut at, the way that it was packed, the method that it was shipped, the amount of people in the chain that it went through, the amount of days in storage, etc. etc. etc.  We recently found an interesting and somewhat disheartening example of trickery that was used to deceive people into thinking that they are comparing apples to apples.  

This week we saw a printed competitor price of Italian Ruscus 200 gram selling for $4.95 a bunch.  We thought, wow that is cheap… in fact it is below our cost.  So, we investigated this further and discovered that this competitor uses the same source of supply that we do.  The supplier informed us that our competitor requests the 200-gram bunches to be cut in half and still labeled as 200 gram.  This competitor is using trickery and in fact dishonesty with this practice.  Unfortunately, our industry does not have a “Weights and Measures” department but we sure could use one.  

At Delaware Valley we do have this and it is our QA Department. They are constantly checking standards and grades to assure that we are delivering what we say we are. The moral to the story here is to us a true apple-to-apple comparison method.  In many cases when you see something shocking in terms of price and value, it should raise a red flag for review. There is always a reason why an item is priced well below its competitive market price. It could be loss leaders, moving product to reduce a bad inventory position, etc.  Not every low priced deal is a bad deal, but warrants some investigation.

 Product Info….

 Everything That You Wanted To Know About

By Ace Reporter Felipe Bernal

WAXFLOWER

Waxflower are relatively new in the world flower market, some of them represent a total innovation. Florists often use it in cut-flower arrangements.  Although it is widely available, the plant is native to Western Australia where it grows as an evergreen shrub in gardens, and along roadsides.  It is considered to be one of Australia’s most famous wildflowers, and this popularity has spurred the development of plants with much different colors (white, yellow, pink, purple, lilac, and bicolor).  Surprisingly, it is in Israel that much of the physiological and horticultural research on this species has been done.  Most Waxflower plant material in Europe originates from that country. In North America, plant material usually originates in California or Mexico, although Peru is also a producer.  Australia itself sells to most of the world. There are a variety of 15 Waxflower, however every year one of them is introduced in order to replace the old ones. The different varieties are differenced depending on the branches, color of the flower, size, density, size of the bud, color of the bud and flowering period.