Mother's Day

Wishing everyone a wonderful Mother’s day; however I do rather hope that all the Mothers out there are fêted by their loved ones. It’s been hell’s bells around here up until Wednesday, with hundreds and hundreds of boxes being shipped out to all parts of the USA with the Mother-lode (as it were) heading to California.

Observations

 

1). Roses are becoming more and more popular for Mothers day and this year, due to a confluence of disparate events, were in short supply. At the end of April of course, the Volcano with the unpronounceable name blew up in Iceland, striking countries like Ireland, Holland and Germany again, having already driven several of the respective countries banks into bankruptcy. Now ash carried by wind currents closed airports in the UK, Scandinavia and Northern Europe. Flights could neither leave nor land and as a result global shipping of flowers through these countries ground to a halt. As soon as airports were re-opened a surge of orders from Europe for Roses, Carnations and so forth from Ecuador and Colombia initiated a cycle of shortages from which we still have not recovered.

2.) Because of the sharp increase in flower commerce conducted through mass-markets and websites where the ability to supply thousands of homogeneous items depends on reasonable quantities of an item, it is logical that commodities like roses, carnations, chrysanthemums, gerberas, selected lilies and gypsophilia make up the bulk of flower designs in these marketplaces. And a natural outcome of demand for such ubiquitous items is that supply runs very low. This is the main reason for the tight market in my opinion.

3.) A sense of burgeoning yet cautious optimism in the country seesm to have encouraged consumers to celebrate a very important figure in their lives; Mom!

 

On behalf of all of us at Mayesh Wholesale, I do wish each and every one of our great customers, as well as all visitors to this site a stupendous Mother’s Day.

 

In my observations perhaps there is a wee gift of prescience, as perhaps this flood or roses to the mass markets may well be a signal that this flower, which is so amazingly and deservedly popular, may have started down the road to over-saturation that carnations embarked upon some twenty years ago. The capitulation by florists to use other flowers in the face of an intense commoditization by the mass-markets lead to almost total abandonment of carnations by many designers and the upshot of which resulted in the closure of many farms or a total switch to rose-growing.

 Tip: Look to other flowers this summer that are not so easily mass produced and marketed to provide distinct value and product differentiation for your customers.

Lastly, I leave you with another look at peonies, almost full-blown, redolent with their own sweet nectar emanating from the ovaries, the contents of which made Paeon so famous throughout Ancient Greece. According to Greek mythology, Paeon, who was a lowly shepherd, found that the seeds of peonies had very strong analgesic qualities and his medicine became much in demand in allaying the pains of mothers-to-be during childbirth.