Latest news with #DebraPrinzing
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Tariffs could take the bloom off Mother's Day flowers
Mother's Day is busy season for American florists. But this year, there's an added source of stress: President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, which are raising the prices of some flowers and causing some wary shoppers to pull back on spending. 'We have to charge more, and it's definitely affecting sales — which I totally get,' Allison Krivachek of Hydrangea Bloom in Tiffin, Iowa, told CNN. 'People just don't have the disposable income they used to.' Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from Colombia, Canada or Ecuador, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The majority of those flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador, where year-round growing climates support the floral industry. Those countries now face tariffs making it more expensive for their products to enter the United States. And Mother's Day spending has dropped 14% among US shoppers as many are scaling back due to tariffs and economic concerns, according to a LendingTree survey. America imported approximately $2.26 billion worth of fresh-cut flowers in 2024, with Colombia accounting for 60% of the market and Ecuador following with 25%, according to US Census Bureau data. Debra Prinzing, founder of the Slow Flowers Society and a leading advocate for American-grown flowers, said the US floral industry was built to rely on imports. 'Don't like it, but that's just the reality,' Prinzing told CNN. 'Ridiculously different,' is how Krivachek describes this year's price hike. Flowers such as lisianthus have doubled in price, Krivachek said, and roses are up anywhere from 10% to 50% compared to last year. She believes the price hikes are higher than what would be reflected in a 10% tariff. 'It's just really weird that there's been such a jump because the tariffs aren't that much. And I don't know if they're raising their prices because of supply and demand,' she said. As a result, she's raised the price of her most popular Mother's Day arrangement from $100 to $125 this year. And despite efforts to be transparent with customers, demand has taken a hit. 'We're down quite a bit,' Krivachek said. 'We're down about 30% year-over-year on this Mother's Day compared to other Mother's Days.' Many customers are now buying flowers to craft their own arrangements, according to Krivachek. The Society of American Florists told CNN florists and wholesalers across the country are adapting to the new financial pressures — much like they did during the pandemic and other supply chain disruptions. 'While tariffs and cost increases are not welcome developments, the floral industry is remarkably resilient,' the society told CNN in a statement. Florists are ordering products earlier, strengthening relationships with growers and wholesalers and planning further in advance to manage costs, the society said. While Krivachek has felt the pressure, she's found ways to adjust, such as by sourcing from local flower farmers. 'I'm still going to have to import flowers,' she said. 'I'm in Iowa, so there's not a lot of variety, especially with weddings. There's certain flowers that only you can get from Ecuador and Colombia.' Sign in to access your portfolio
CNN
10-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
Tariffs could take the bloom off Mother's Day flowers
Mother's Day is busy season for American florists. But this year, there's an added source of stress: President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, which are raising the prices of some flowers and causing some wary shoppers to pull back on spending. 'We have to charge more, and it's definitely affecting sales — which I totally get,' Allison Krivachek of Hydrangea Bloom in Tiffin, Iowa, told CNN. 'People just don't have the disposable income they used to.' Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from Colombia, Canada or Ecuador, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The majority of those flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador, where year-round growing climates support the floral industry. Those countries now face tariffs making it more expensive for their products to enter the United States. And Mother's Day spending has dropped 14% among US shoppers as many are scaling back due to tariffs and economic concerns, according to a LendingTree survey. America imported approximately $2.26 billion worth of fresh-cut flowers in 2024, with Colombia accounting for 60% of the market and Ecuador following with 25%, according to US Census Bureau data. Debra Prinzing, founder of the Slow Flowers Society and a leading advocate for American-grown flowers, said the US floral industry was built to rely on imports. 'Don't like it, but that's just the reality,' Prinzing told CNN. 'Ridiculously different,' is how Krivachek describes this year's price hike. Flowers such as lisianthus have doubled in price, Krivachek said, and roses are up anywhere from 10% to 50% compared to last year. She believes the price hikes are higher than what would be reflected in a 10% tariff. 'It's just really weird that there's been such a jump because the tariffs aren't that much. And I don't know if they're raising their prices because of supply and demand,' she said. As a result, she's raised the price of her most popular Mother's Day arrangement from $100 to $125 this year. And despite efforts to be transparent with customers, demand has taken a hit. 'We're down quite a bit,' Krivachek said. 'We're down about 30% year-over-year on this Mother's Day compared to other Mother's Days.' Many customers are now buying flowers to craft their own arrangements, according to Krivachek. The Society of American Florists told CNN florists and wholesalers across the country are adapting to the new financial pressures — much like they did during the pandemic and other supply chain disruptions. 'While tariffs and cost increases are not welcome developments, the floral industry is remarkably resilient,' the society told CNN in a statement. Florists are ordering products earlier, strengthening relationships with growers and wholesalers and planning further in advance to manage costs, the society said. While Krivachek has felt the pressure, she's found ways to adjust, such as by sourcing from local flower farmers. 'I'm still going to have to import flowers,' she said. 'I'm in Iowa, so there's not a lot of variety, especially with weddings. There's certain flowers that only you can get from Ecuador and Colombia.'
CNN
10-05-2025
- Business
- CNN
Tariffs could take the bloom off Mother's Day flowers
Mother's Day is busy season for American florists. But this year, there's an added source of stress: President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs, which are raising the prices of some flowers and causing some wary shoppers to pull back on spending. 'We have to charge more, and it's definitely affecting sales — which I totally get,' Allison Krivachek of Hydrangea Bloom in Tiffin, Iowa, told CNN. 'People just don't have the disposable income they used to.' Eighty percent of all cut flowers sold in the United States are imported from Colombia, Canada or Ecuador, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The majority of those flowers come from Colombia and Ecuador, where year-round growing climates support the floral industry. Those countries now face tariffs making it more expensive for their products to enter the United States. And Mother's Day spending has dropped 14% among US shoppers as many are scaling back due to tariffs and economic concerns, according to a LendingTree survey. America imported approximately $2.26 billion worth of fresh-cut flowers in 2024, with Colombia accounting for 60% of the market and Ecuador following with 25%, according to US Census Bureau data. Debra Prinzing, founder of the Slow Flowers Society and a leading advocate for American-grown flowers, said the US floral industry was built to rely on imports. 'Don't like it, but that's just the reality,' Prinzing told CNN. 'Ridiculously different,' is how Krivachek describes this year's price hike. Flowers such as lisianthus have doubled in price, Krivachek said, and roses are up anywhere from 10% to 50% compared to last year. She believes the price hikes are higher than what would be reflected in a 10% tariff. 'It's just really weird that there's been such a jump because the tariffs aren't that much. And I don't know if they're raising their prices because of supply and demand,' she said. As a result, she's raised the price of her most popular Mother's Day arrangement from $100 to $125 this year. And despite efforts to be transparent with customers, demand has taken a hit. 'We're down quite a bit,' Krivachek said. 'We're down about 30% year-over-year on this Mother's Day compared to other Mother's Days.' Many customers are now buying flowers to craft their own arrangements, according to Krivachek. The Society of American Florists told CNN florists and wholesalers across the country are adapting to the new financial pressures — much like they did during the pandemic and other supply chain disruptions. 'While tariffs and cost increases are not welcome developments, the floral industry is remarkably resilient,' the society told CNN in a statement. Florists are ordering products earlier, strengthening relationships with growers and wholesalers and planning further in advance to manage costs, the society said. While Krivachek has felt the pressure, she's found ways to adjust, such as by sourcing from local flower farmers. 'I'm still going to have to import flowers,' she said. 'I'm in Iowa, so there's not a lot of variety, especially with weddings. There's certain flowers that only you can get from Ecuador and Colombia.'
New York Times
12-02-2025
- General
- New York Times
How Can My Valentine's Flowers Show the Earth Love, Too?
It may be more heartbreaking than hearing your Thanksgiving dinner is wasteful or your Halloween chocolate is problematic. But yes: Those Valentine's roses do have an environmental cost. The majority of cut flowers this time of year are flown in from Colombia and Ecuador on refrigerated airplanes, burning through fossil fuels. Commercial flower farming has also been linked to other environmental problems, such as toxic pesticides and extensive water use. To be truly climate-conscious, you might consider skipping the luxury of winter flower bouquets. However, there's some nuance to this decision. You can probably still put together a more climate-friendly bouquet at the most humble flower stand if you know what to look for. Roses are red, tulips might be greener 'The carbon issue is definitely one that people are asking about,' said Debra Prinzing, the author of the book 'Slow Flowers' and founder of an online directory for buying flowers locally. 'But not everybody, including myself, is equipped to do that calculation.' Researchers have assessed the total carbon costs for some flower crops, but each stem in a bouquet could come from a different country and be grown in a different way, making the math tricky. One way to simplify things is by buying a classic bunch of tulips. This is the only flower mass-grown in the United States in the winter on such a scale that you can find them at most local shops. And the majority of tulips sold to Americans are shipped by truck for relatively short distances. It hasn't always been that way. About a decade ago, 'most of the supermarkets were dominated by Dutch tulips,' said David Kaplan, a longtime Rhode Island-based flower importer and distributor. Walmart said that most of their current tulips were grown domestically. Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and the Kroger grocery chain are often supplied by a grower in Virginia. There are major tulip operations in New Jersey, the state of Washington and across the border in southern Ontario and British Columbia. Together, Canadian and American farms grew 253 million tulips sold in the U.S. in 2023, the last year for which full statistics are available. That was four times as many as the Dutch supplied that year. In other words, if you bought tulips for Valentine's Day in 2023, there was a good chance that they were fairly locally grown. Some flower farmers have turned to them partly because they can be grown in abundance. 'You can grow a lot of tulips in a very small space in a fairly small amount of time,' said Jennifer Kouvant, who co-owns a Hudson Valley farm. 'In our pretty small space of, I would say, 18 by 25 square feet, we're able to grow about 20,000 to 30,000 tulips over a two- or three-month period.' Making tulips bloom early — tricking them into experiencing an early 'winter' by first cold-storing the bulbs until they root, then simulating spring by heating and lighting them — is an age-old practice, but it's seeing a 'renaissance,' said Kouvant. Her farm sells a five-week tulip-bouquet subscription that starts in February. The greenhouse conundrum This surge in the local growing of tulips doesn't solve every environmental problem, though, since many North American tulips are greenhouse-grown. If the greenhouses are highly automated and consume a lot of electricity that was generated by burning fossil fuels, the tulips can still be carbon-intensive, according to Rebecca Swinn, a U.K. researcher who published a carbon-life-cycle analysis for some U.K.-sold flowers and ran some rougher calculations on the U.S. market. Only 13 percent of Virginia's power, for example, is renewable. 'This factors in significantly,' she said. Still, after looking at the major growing states' power mixes, 'it is a fair assumption that U.S.A.-grown tulips would have lower overall emissions than roses imported from Colombia,' she said, adding that small-scale growers like Kouvant in Hudson Valley would have 'much lower emissions.' The math could still improve as big growers build on-site renewable energy. It's also getting more common for smaller American growers to force other spring flowers into bloom around Valentine's Day, including anemone, ranunculus and sweet peas, said John Dole, a horticulture professor at North Carolina State University. Think outside the bouquet Don't forget other gift ideas: candles, tickets to a show or — this can't fail — a handmade love letter. If you want longer-lasting flowers, you could gift dried or pressed arrangements. Or consider a spring flower subscription from a local farm, or a wintertime tulip one. (This map might help you find some nearby.) For foodies, maybe a bouquet you can eat? One high-end grocer has a 'radicchio not roses' campaign. But if a box of bitter produce would spoil the romance, all is not lost. Try buying tulips or another cool-weather flower, and take a minute to ask where they were grown. Try to skip the cellophane wrapping. And of course, compost that bouquet.
