The Most Important Message of All
Wholesalers · Distributors · Importers · Auction Houses · Brokers
We wrote a special message to the florists. We wrote a special message to the growers. And now it is time to write the most important message of all — to everyone in the middle. To the wholesalers, the distributors, the importers, the auction houses, the brokers, and every business that keeps the chain of life moving between the farm and the flower shop.
You are, without question, the most important part of this industry's infrastructure. And that is exactly why this message needed to be written carefully.
This is about one thing: helping the flower shop compete with the grocery store on the everyday bouquet. That single category of business, returned to the flower shop, would move more stems through every hand that touches them — including yours.
What we are building is a standard for what a flower shop is, a worldwide list of the shops that meet it, and a mark a customer can recognise. Alongside it, a reference tool that helps a florist's staff learn the product faster.
None of that moves a box or writes an invoice. The flowers travel exactly as they travel today.
Change threatens some businesses. When a business does not want to change, two things happen — they succeed or they fail. Both are real outcomes. Why? Because every business knows its own market better than anyone from the outside ever could. We do not want to force change on any business that can succeed without it.
But for those who see what is coming — for those who are already asking how to evolve — we want you to know that there is a seat at the table. It is just not ready yet.
We want to be absolutely clear: this is not about removing wholesalers, distributors, importers or any part of the existing supply chain. Your relationships are yours to keep, and we are not disrupting them. You move, cool, finance and consolidate the flowers, and nothing we are building does any of that.
There is one thing that stops with you today, and it is the only thing we are asking about. What the grower knows about a variety — its name, its farm, how it was handled, how long it will actually last — rarely reaches the florist. It is not withheld on purpose. There has never been a way to carry it. A florist who can answer a customer's question sells more flowers, and more flowers sold is more flowers moved.
Florists write the standard. Every shop that meets it is listed free and gets a free window decal.
Growers, wholesalers and importers put I Speak Flowers™ on the boxes and trucks that reach every flower shop.
Grower and variety names carried through to the flower shop, so florists and customers know what they're buying.
When someone needs flowers, a flower shop comes to mind first, and the whole trade helped put it there.
We ask one thing of you right now. Please be patient. Please support a new idea. And please — do not tear it down before you can see where it is going.
We have great respect for what you have built. The middle of this chain did not happen by accident. It was built over generations by people who understood logistics, relationships, and markets in ways that few others do. That knowledge is not being discarded. It is being waited for.
This is not the first time the middle was affected or changed by technology. Please read the page Similar Industries — found under the Industry Solutions tab above — where this type of situation has already happened many times before.
We hope to have many conversations with all of you very soon. Until then — thank you. For everything you do, every day, to keep the flowers moving.
With deep respect for everything you have built
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