Global Flower Shortage and What it means.

Many of you have asked us about recent news stories regarding the short supply of flowers affecting the floral industry right now. The supply-demand imbalance for flowers is unprecedented in the last 30 years, so I want to take this opportunity to explain what is causing the tight market conditions and how they might impact the days, weeks, and months ahead. We are dedicated to providing our clients the quality of flowers we are passionate about designing your arrangements with at Love N' Bloom.

 One year ago, the entire world confronted a massive disruption from the Covid pandemic. The global economy ground to a halt, and many U.S. florists and flower distributors shut down, at least temporarily. Around the world, the growers were being impacted as flower demand collapsed. Nobody could predict what would happen next. As a result, many growers made decisions in 2020, reducing cost and pared-back production volumes. We are still dealing with the downstream effects of those decisions. Exacerbating the supply constraints, several largescale grower/bouquet makers supplying mass markets have acquired South American farms, thus reducing product available to the florist channel. On top of all that, Mother Nature has weighed in with inclement weather conditions in Colombia and Ecuador recently, which has further reduced growing or destroyed flower farm production. 

 The pandemic also wreaked havoc with the delicate flower supply chain and logistics companies that get flowers to us fresh from the farms. Passenger flights have been dramatically reduced, forcing increased demand to cargo airlines for freight. In some cases, cargo planes themselves have been redeployed from South America to other regions of the world to accommodate spiking demand. The result – higher prices for air cargo and less availability of space for perishable items like flowers. Complicating distribution issues, even more, U.S. trucking companies are struggling to hire farm-to-market drivers due to the explosion of e-commerce in the past year, which has driven farm-to-market driver demand all-time high.

All of the above is happening just as consumer interest in flowers has caught fire. Americans have been nesting at home and have been separated from loved ones for over a year. As a result, the beautiful products that we sell have seen a spike in demand. That is excellent news and something we hope will be sustained. The challenge, of course, is that the spiking demand for flowers is occurring at precisely the time when flower supply is in a trough.

 Love N‘ Bloom has strong and resilient relationships with our Flower partners to help bind our connections to our growers in places such as Holland, California, Alaska, Hawaii, and South America.  We are confident that we are well-positioned to compete for great flowers and roses. That said, everyone in the industry is affected by the conditions described above. So, we want you to know that while Love N’ Bloom will do everything in our power to fill orders precisely as we have taken them, there will occasionally be a need for flexibility concerning substitutions or similar familiar Love N’ Bloom quality flowers. We can guarantee that we will make every effort to be 100% on the mark, but we know the situation will make it difficult for us and our floral industry friends and partners to achieve that goal. We also know that flowers will be more expensive for us to purchase from our farms and suppliers until this supply-demand imbalance returns to normal. So, we ask that you bear with us as we strive to provide outstanding quality flowers at the access to all prices Love N’ Bloom holds as an essential cornerstone of our brand values as we move through this unusual period. We will be communicating proactively during this time, as always. We hope that this resurgence in our customers' love of having beautiful flowers continues and looks forward to a more normal supply level in the months ahead.