Coronavirus affecting Easter and spring flowers, hub of Miami’s billion-dollar industry
With springtime comes flowers.
This is especially true at this time of year, with Easter Sunday, Mother’s Day (May 10) and spring weddings usually making it one of the busiest periods for growers, florists, flower importers, logistics companies and shippers, which make up a billion dollar-plus industry in South Florida.
But coronavirus has shuttered churches and restaurants, two major consumers of flowers for Easter services and brunches. Shelter-in-place orders mean fewer families are hosting Easter dinners at home. Spring weddings have been postponed, and growers across the world have had to kill their crops as demand has withered..
So, millions of flowers a day — hills of Easter lilies, roses, chrysanthemums and tulips — are being burned or composted in unprecedented fashion in South America and the Netherlands, The Bangkok Press reported.
Economic impact on Miami
The economic impact on South Florida is particularly acute because the region is a major hub for the importing of flowers — primarily from Ecuador and Colombia. The flowers are flown into Miami International Airport, where logistics firms near the airport store them in refrigerated warehouses, from which they are shipped across the United States.
In South Florida, it’s a multi-pronged machine, said Christine Boldt, executive vice president of the Association of Floral Importers of Florida.
There are traditional importers who sell to wholesalers who sell to retail florists, like Express Flowers, Zoom Bloomz and Bayfront Floral and Event Design; supermarkets like Publix, Winn-Dixie, Sedano’s and Albertson’s; mass market-big box retailers like Costco, BJs, Walmart and Sam’s Club; growers, importers and distributors like Continental Flowers in Doral and Action Theory Landscaping and Nursery in South Miami-Dade; and the online e-commerce and order fulfillment markets.
Also, there are extra inspectors hired by U.S. Customs and Border Protection to pore over bouquets that enter South Florida en masse on holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter and Mother’s Day.
Everyone involved in the flower industry, here and abroad, is affected.
“The economic impact for the flower industry starts at the farms in the countries of origin. Colombia and Ecuador are the main sources and about 90 percent of the flowers that enter into the U.S. come through Miami — the airport, mainly, but also the seaport. Last year, there were 6.7 million stems that were imported into the U.S.,” Boldt said.
“The flower industry employs more than 6,000 people in and around the airport. Many of the employees have been furloughed or some let go because of the lack of demand since the COVID-19 restriction started,” Boldt said.
Those flower-originating countries have stay-at-home orders, too, Boldt said.
“So special agreements had to be given to allow the workers to go to the farm — they have to practice social distancing, wear masks and gloves and work in more than one shift to fulfill orders. The trucks can transport the flowers to the airport, but there are less flights because of the lack of demand.
“Then, here in Miami, the need to protect employees and still be able to get the flowers out to the truck lines for transportation to the rest of the U.S. can be challenging,” Boldt said.
The dip in demand impacts not only the growers who can’t sell their crops but also the local importers, the warehouses around Miami and the logistics staffers.
“The flower industry is a billion dollars — probably higher — and South Florida is the main entry point for the majority of flowers that get shipped,” said Frank Ducassi, national account manager for Florida Beauty Flora Transportation, a logistics company near the airport.
“Normally, it’s steady business where 15 trucks leave on a Monday, and then Easter comes along, and the Easter volume is two-and-a-half or three times the volume for five or six days, and then it’s back to normal,” Ducassi said.
COVID-19 upended normal
“This year, the normal is really bad,” Ducassi said, estimating transports have dipped by 60 to 70 percent.
Florida Beauty Flora Transportation owns Flora Logistics in Miami, which picks up tons of imported product like flowers and produce from Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami, pre-cools, consolidates and distributes the goods nationwide, where they end up in hotels, restaurants, churches, temples, funeral homes and living rooms.
Florida Beauty declined to give a dollar estimate loss of business for the South Florida community, but the approximate 65 percent dip in shipments is significant.
“Some [businesses] are scraping by, ordering a little bit here, a little bit there,” Ducassi said.
On Tuesday, eight trucks left Flora’s lot in Miami. Last Friday, 17 went out.
“Normally, we’d send out 25 on a Friday and on Monday maybe 20, 22. Those numbers are inflated because of Easter. But this year we aren’t getting the usual push,” Ducassi said.
With fewer trucks in use, a truck might go to Dallas and make 15 stops along the way, stopping in Pensacola, Houston and so forth, Ducassi explained.
Flora’s predominant business during Easter-Mother’s Day season is 80 percent flowers, 20 percent produce compared to a 60-40 percent mix the rest of the year.
Flora Logistics, along with South Florida’s family-owned Armellini Logistics, which provides air freight in and out of Miami and South America, along with refrigerated trucking and warehousing, handle much of the perishable goods market in South Florida.
Miami’s thriving import-export industry
In November, the Miami Herald reported that fresh-cut flower imports at Miami International Airport had grown 4.14 percent year to date over the 2018 total of $755.69 million; at Port Everglades, flower imports grew by 72.9 percent year to date over the 2018 total of $17.54 million, according to trade data analyzed by WorldCity, a Coral Gables media and data research company.
Nationally, warehouse storage space increased by 260 million square feet, or 2 percent, in 2018, the Herald reported.
South Florida, however, outpaced the nation, adding 5.8 million square feet, or 3.3 percent, according to JLL, a national commercial real estate firm with offices in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Jacksonville and Tampa.
Flowers require refrigeration so more than 400,000 square feet of cold storage was already planned for South Florida before COVID-19 was discovered in Wuhan, China, in December.
The Mother’s Day problem
Easter, though clearly popular for the flower market, may not be the biggest problem. Mother’s Day, on May 10, may be the bigger test as social distancing is almost a certainty through May.
“The timing of this pandemic falls in between two of the largest floral holidays. So not having everyone in the industry open to get flowers to everyone for the Mother’s Day holiday will be hard for the flower industry,” Boldt said.
“Unfortunately, flowers are not as big a part of Easter celebrations as they were years ago. Years ago, people would buy Easter corsages for the ladies to wear to church. Flowers were a part of the Easter table and celebration. Easter is a sign of spring, so spring flowers are more available at this time,” she added.
Simply storing already grown flowers is not an option. “Flowers cannot be stored for Mother’s Day. They are perishable so have a determined life span,” Boldt said.
Reasons for optimism
If there’s any consolation, scenes of flower destruction in South America and the Netherlands won’t likely be seen in South Florida. Miami’s cold storage units aren’t full of Easter and Passover flowers that will have to be destroyed.
“The flower industry is a 52-week, 365-day business so the flowers that were brought in for Easter already were sent out on refrigerated trucks to go to the wholesalers, retailers, supermarkets and mass markets. There are flowers also available in fulfillment warehouses to fill online orders for Passover and Easter,” Boldt said.
Florida Beauty’s Ducassi also clings to optimism.
“The flower industry will take a big hit, a lot of people will go out of business,” he said. “But the flower industry is extremely resilient and survived the Depression.”
Adds Boldt: “The main thing is that flowers are still available. They are in most of the stores that are open, and consumers can brighten someone’s day by having flowers delivered to whomever they are thinking of, can bring some flowers home to enhance their homes or can leave flowers on someone’s doorstep to say ‘thank you’ or ‘thinking of you’ in this time of social distancing.”
This story was originally published April 10, 2020 at 12:14 PM.
