ABOVE ALL FLOWERS

By David Kaplan aka “Floradamus”

The Return of Floradamus

Fifteen long years ago, I, the flower wizard, David Kaplan, wrote an article under the name Floradamus. With all the crazy things going on, I felt it was time to bring him back! There is a lot to think about.

Who is Floradamus? He’s like Nostradamus, he makes prophecies. Some of them may turn out correct and some are completely wrong (Flora Dumb Ass).

Who was Nostradamus? Nostradamus was an oracle. An oracle is a person considered to provide insight, wise counsel, or prophetic prediction of the future.

Floradamus is a “Floracle,” if you will. Hopefully Floradamus’ predictions will prove to be more impactful than Nostradamus himself. 

Why now?

The world has changed a lot since I published my last few articles: politically, economically, socially, and in many other ways. The flower industry faces many challenges as well as many opportunities in the future. 

Mergers and acquisitions will become even more prevalent in the future in all sectors. Farms, importers, retailers, logistics companies, and wholesalers will continue to be sold to other operations as for many economies of scale make great sense. The daily question will be… who did so-and-so buy today? Other entities might just disappear. With costs rising, it is not as easy to run smaller operations as they do not provide a large enough return on investments and the margins are compressed. 

Private equity is becoming more involved in the flower business. We will see who will be successful when it becomes time to cash out and flip some of these operations.

Insurance of all kinds is running higher along with other necessary costs. It is not easy for chain wholesalers with locations that do smaller volumes ownership to make money. This will result in creating some underserved markets where to be profitable, margins are increased causing retailers to bypass local sources and go to national distributors or direct to farms. 

We will continue to see more closings and sales of retail florists. From 1992 to 2025, we have seen the number of florists drop from 27,000 to 12,000. Since retailer florists make up most of the customers for wholesalers, we can easily see why there is a drop in the number of wholesalers as well as more mergers and acquisitions. When a large retail customer of a regional wholesaler is sold to another large retail customer with different buying habits, it is not unusual for a local wholesaler to feel the pain.

The percentage of flowers being sold through mass market and e-commerce will continue to grow. Demand for flowers will stay strong in most sectors… maybe a little too strong around the holidays and a little too weak in slow periods. National marketing campaigns will keep trying to increase demand.

With the recent tariffs and increasing inflationary pricing, there will be more pressure for retailers and event planners to find alternative sources and go around wholesalers.

So far for 2025, we have seen more importation of flowers from South America as well as more specialty flowers being produced domestically. Open-field flower acreage in the U.S. Has more than doubled between 2017 and 2022 thanks in part to local farms growing flowers that don’t ship well like zinnias and dahlias as well as flowers that do ship well like peonies. Air shipments of imports to Miami are up about 10% this year and ocean shipping is up about 2% year to date. Based on what I see, mass market and e- commerce demand is where the increases are. 

Many of the Covid buying trends have changed. This explains why a few of the mass market suppliers are purchasing more growing operations. This is especially true since the increase particularly on roses is mostly from Colombia where price points are generally more competitive and tend to go more to mass markets than Ecuador where freight and tariffs are higher. It will be interesting to see how the end of year numbers end up after the impact of the recent tariffs.

From AFIA: 

“The Trump Administration issued an update on the reciprocal tariffs in September 2025. In the update there were two attachments Annex 11 and Annex 111.  

Annex 111 is a list of products that can be considered for lower or no tariffs in the future if the countries work with the Administration on trade relations with the US.  This list is items that are not produced in the US or are not sufficient for the requirements.  Cut flowers are on the list, so we are hoping that the Administration works with Colombia, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Guatemala, etc. That we can get flowers exempt from tariffs.”

Exchange rates will be influencing the flower industry even on domestically produced products. Since April 2025, the Colombian Peso is approximately 3881 down from 4423 in April of 2025 or approximately 12%. The Euro is currently 1.17 up from 1.02 in February 2025 or approximately up 14+%. Unfortunately, flower producers and  importers have no control over exchange rates and tariffs.

Growers that concentrate on the United States are very worried and have been seeking other markets especially in Europe and Asia. This is especially true for Colombians and Ecuadoreans. Obviously, the war between Russia and Ukraine has already created issues for many flower producing countries.

In the future, there could be more worldwide shortages of flowers if more growers continue to stop or reduce flower production as costs increase due to inflation of material costs, transportation and labor. Not to mention exchange rates are absorbing some of the costs of the tariffs and other political regulations. 

Crop shortages could result from the fact that most of the supply of potassium (50%) comes from countries that are war torn or sanctioned. Fertilizer for crops is a necessity. A country like Brazil imports 98% of its potash supply making them vulnerable to supply and costs.

Consumer tastes will be changing and they will be leaning toward the purchasing of different varieties of flowers with better value to them. With more breeders developing new and interesting varieties, I predict there will be a superclass of high-end exclusive products that will demand higher prices and demand if these products are grown in moderation and it will be akin to how many Ferraris or Bugatti’s should be built.

Floradumus sees a lot of changes coming at warp speeds. AI, robots, flower vending machines, and other forms of new technology will change the face of our industry. Better transportation and cooling methods will advance.  New areas to grow flowers around the world will be developed for many reasons as well as new products to keep the consumers’ appetite for the latest and greatest trends and varieties (After all, the iPhone 17 just came out!).

See you in the future,

Floradamus

For more on the economy, logistics, inflation, and more see the Wizard’s Wand News!

To contact Floradamus through Above All Flowers 

Email: aboveallflowers@mac.com

Call: 401-486-0525