Flower shortage is causing prices to skyrocket

ROTHSCHILD, Wisconsin (WSAW) – The consequences of the pandemic continue to linger on floral businesses. With a high demand for flowers and a lack of supply, they were forced to raise prices.

“Labor shortages and transportation, these are the two things that have driven prices up over 40% in some areas,” said Travis Yanagida, mass market account manager for Krueger Wholesale Florist. Incorporated.

The onset of the pandemic prompted growers to cut between 15% and 40% of their plantations because they did not have enough staff to take care of the flowers during the shutdown. Even when people started returning to work, not all of the employees did, which has a long-standing impact on local flower businesses.

Krueger Wholesale Florist Incorporated faced many challenges, but they seized the opportunity and tackled the challenges one thorn at a time.

One of the challenges was to organize large events with a limited supply of certain varieties. Weddings usually require a lot of flowers. Weddings that were postponed due to the pandemic are now taking place in addition to those that were actually scheduled for this year. A popular demand for weddings is for white flowers, which are unfortunately rare.

“White carnations, white roses. These are probably the two biggest ones that we are like “these things are still available, but they weren’t,” Yanagida said.

Some plants and flowers may be more resistant to climate change, but some just can’t handle it. The weather in the states that supply flowers to Kruger was not cooperating in addition to the other issues.

Much of Kruegers’ flowers come from California, and cloudy days and wildfires have had an impact on production. They also get flowers from South America.

“South America had a lot of rainy and overcast days, which slowed flower production when we needed it most,” said Yanagida.

Unfortunately, flowers in high demand come at a high price.

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