Why Are Fake Flowers So Expensive?

There are many reasons why some flowers are more expensive than others, simply because they are easily available to florists. The harder it is to source, the more expensive it is. In March 2021, the world’s largest flower auction recorded a 48% increase in flower prices compared to the same period last year, and there is no sign of stopping!
Why is this happening? There are many factors, including the season, COVID and Brexit…

Special Events

Red Box Bouquet for Valentine’s Day
One of the most obvious examples is Valentine’s Day, in the days leading up to Valentine’s Day, the demand for red roses increases exponentially, and usually this demand is greater than the supply of red roses, which means they have to increase the price of roses.

Seasons

All flowers have a blooming season, when they bloom their largest, most colorful and of the highest quality. However, this window is usually limited to a few weeks to a few months per flower. Take daffodils, which grow in the spring.

Due to the cold and wet winters in the UK, there are fewer varieties of flowers during these months. This means that if we want the flowers we usually see in the spring and summer, we need to buy them from abroad, where the growing conditions are better. This means there are extra costs to shipping flowers to the UK. If these foreign growers have a poor harvest due to bad weather or natural disasters, this means the price of flowers will be higher.

Spring and summer are the best times to buy British flowers as they are usually plentiful!

COVID

It’s not hard to believe that the pandemic has helped to increase the price of flowers, as millions of flowers had to be destroyed in mid-March last year when the global lockdown began as businesses, wholesalers, economies and buyers shut down. The supply of flowers in the UK was already precarious before the lockdown as suppliers in the Netherlands didn’t know if their goods would be able to leave the country or come into the UK.

To protect their businesses, many growers have long had to lay off/furlough workers and scale back production as they didn’t know when demand for flowers would return.

Due to huge differences in restrictions and infection levels around the world and a host of other factors, flower supplies have not yet returned to pre-pandemic levels, and demand for flowers has increased during the pandemic.

But with more family members sending flowers for birthdays, Christmas and just thinking of you, growers and suppliers can’t keep up.

Brexit

Whether you voted to remain or leave, Brexit has caused some problems for UK imports and exports and increased costs for UK buyers through bureaucracy.

The world’s largest flower grower, the Netherlands, is a member of the European Union. This means that some flowers grown by Dutch growers require an additional 10% surcharge to handle the extra paperwork and checks on the flowers.

As the Brexit process progresses further and the true cost of inspections is discovered, these additional costs may go up or down. However, as people gradually adjust to the new policies and procedures, it is likely that export costs will go down. But only time will tell.

Because of this, many wholesalers are sourcing flowers from new sources in Africa and around the world, trying to get the same high-quality flowers that we florists expect, but at a cheaper price.

In the medium to long term, price increases will continue. At least until the pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit ease.