Mornings with Mayesh: Growers During COVID-19

As promised, we brought flower growers into the COVID-19 conversation. Chad Nelson of Eufloria Flowers and Martin Meskers of Oregon Flowers joined Patrick and me to discuss the changes happening in our floral industry. They share their stories, challenges, knowledge & insight along with answering your floral questions. We are in this together!

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Here are the video, podcast replay, and show notes:

SHOW NOTES

GROWER QUESTIONS

• Before we get into the questions, let’s start off by telling us a little bit about yourself & your flower story:
  
  
• Can you walk us through the process that you went through when deciding whether or not to stay open?
  
  
• Bruce:
• One question I have for Chad and Martin is about the effect of the pandemic on the availability of labor for California flower farms. I’ve been reading about the impact on the farmworkers, often seasonal, who harvest a lot of the nation’s produce—including the decisions by the state department, first to stop processing visa applications under the H-2A program in Mexico, then to resume processing, but with limited service, giving priority to returning applicants. 

• What is the overlap between this workforce and the workers who harvest flower crops? I think finding and retaining skilled workers has long been a challenge for flower farmers; how has the pandemic affected that? 

• Also, can they (or anyone at Mayesh) estimate the drop in order volume since the pandemic began? 

• Caty: Are you hearing that growers are having to stop growing for a season (s) that will affect their place in the supply chain?
  
  
• Jan: Do you think at some point growers will turn the water off ? if so what time frame would it take. to start back up?
  
  
• Amanda: I'm assuming that some product that has become more available year-round - like coral peonies, etc. is going to have wider gaps of unavailability. Do you think it's smart to assume that?
  
  
• Hermon: Do you think suppliers will start sending their Flower wholesale quality blooms to supermarket chains?
  
  
• Gaye: Is this a time for us to start asking flower farmers for dried flowers?
  
  
• Carol: When the floral market is back, should we expect the price to increase?

QUESTIONS

• RSVP Floral Design: Can we get a summary/recap of all this great info on what to expect from Mayesh that we can reference as we move forward?
  
  
• Penny: Pat, how do you think we can keep the #poweroftheflower relevant? I know we have no product, but we can showcase our past experiences!
• https://blog.mayesh.com/tiktok-mayeshfloristchallenge

• Buying Direct - READ BOTH TOGETHER TO ANSWER
• Penny: Do you have any American growers that could help us out with supply??

• • Shawna: Can you provide a list of local product that is available and what those prices are?
    
    
• Madeleine: Do you foresee this event accelerating the adoption of e-commerce purchasing?
  
  
• Kelli: Should we even be quoting weddings for later this year or next year?
  • Robin: this affects marketing and doing proposals because we don't know pricing
  • Shawna:  I’m adding an addendum to my contract that indicates prices are subject to change with specific language regarding this
  • YVONNE:
    • https://we.curate.co/state-of-the-floral-industry-amidst-covid-register?utm_campaign=covid&utm_source=mayesh
    • https://blog.mayesh.com/covid-19-floral-business-checklist