A Message to the Industry

Connect — A Message to the Industry

Growers · Shippers · Importers · Wholesalers · Distributors · Auction Houses

We Are Here to Fill a Niche

Everyone in this industry wants the flower shop to make it through 2026 and beyond. The trouble is that the industry sells to every outlet: the florist, the supermarket, the online seller. So it can only market what they all sell, the flower. It has never been in a position to market the flower shop itself.

That is the niche. One job, left open for decades: telling customers what a flower shop is and where to find a real one. It is the only thing the World Cut Flower Commission does. Florists pay for it. We are not asking the industry to change anything it already does.

We promote all education in this trade, wherever it comes from. We have no favorites and no relationships to manage for profit. We do not favor one association, one wire service or one wholesaler. That is not our job. We work for florists, and what florists need sets our direction.

The Refresh the Industry Could Not Build

Here is the refresh this industry has been looking for: a way to stand behind the flower shop that costs almost nothing, and does not set you against your other customers, because the mark only goes on what you send to florists.

Put I Speak Flowers on the boxes you ship to florists. Every box that lands on a florist's bench tells that florist the campaign exists, and it comes from a name they already trust. Put it on the truck, the van, the invoice, the website. The florists you serve hear about it from you, and they see that the people who grow and move their flowers are behind them.

The version on your box is not the window decal. The decal says a shop meets the flower shop standard, and only a qualifying shop can show it. Yours says you stand behind the florist. Same name, a different sentence, so no customer ever mistakes a truck for a flower shop.

Others Already Carry a Mark Like This

Suppliers standing behind independent shops is not a new idea, and neither is a mark that travels on what a trade ships. Why the flower industry cannot market the flower shop on its own, and the study that proved it, is on our history page.

Craft Beer's Second Seal

In 2017 the Brewers Association gave independent brewers a seal for the can. By 2019 more than 4,000 brewers used it, and the Association added a second seal for everyone around them: distributors, retailers and allied trade companies who wanted to show their support.

Shop Small

American Express serves every kind of business, large and small. In 2010 it created Small Business Saturday to send customers to the small ones, and it gives them the signs for their windows free.

Flowers Already Do It

Certified flowers already travel with a mark: the Florverde Sustainable Flowers label, the Fairtrade Mark. This industry already knows how to put a promise on what it ships.

The pattern is simple. The people who supply a trade can carry its mark without selling it or owning it. In floral, the carrier is the box. It is the one thing that reaches every florist on earth, every week, and it is already being paid for.

A World Industry

This industry is already worldwide. A box packed in Colombia, Kenya, Ecuador or the Netherlands lands on a bench in Chicago, London or Tokyo a few days later. The flowers cross borders every day, and so do the relationships: growers followed by florists on Instagram, wholesalers talking to buyers on LinkedIn.

That is reach no campaign could buy. If the mark travels with the flowers, every florist who opens a box learns that florists everywhere are defining what a flower shop is, in their own language, under one name. The Commission works with the florists. The box carries the message to them.

Support That Costs Almost Nothing

This industry has spent a long time looking for a way to help flower shops that it could afford and that would work. PromoFlor proved that advertising can move flower buying. But it advertised the flower, so every seller grew together and the florist's share never moved. Generic flower advertising is worth doing, but it cannot send a customer to a florist instead of a supermarket. The industry has never had a way to do that without favoring one of its customers over another.

This is that way. Florists fund the campaign. The mark only goes on what you ship to florists. What it costs you is the same licence every flower shop pays, one per location — and after that, ink on a box you are already sending, space on a truck you already drive, and a line on a website you already have. What it gives the florist is the thing the industry wanted for them and could not build: a reason for customers to walk through their door.

Our Ask Is Simple. Carry the Mark.

Put I Speak Flowers where your florist customers will see it: on boxes, sleeves, trucks, invoices and your website. Tell them what it means, and point them to the I Speak Flowers meeting in their area. That is all. Supporting flower shops in 2026 and beyond is something this whole industry knows is needed. This is a way to do it together.

The Table Is Set.

Tell us you are in. When the artwork for boxes and trucks is ready, you will be among the first to have it.