By Luke Voogt
Geelong florists have urged locals to buy flowers for any occasion “they can think of” to help sellers recover after state government’s five-day lockdown decimated the industry on Valentine’s Day.
Geelong Flower Farm owner Glenn Butteriss encouraged locals to purchase bouquets simply to “brighten up your home” or “let someone know you’re thinking of them”.
“Any possible reason you can think of to buy flowers, through your local florist, just do it to support the industry,” he said.
The farm’s onsite sales, limited to presales amid the snap COVID-19 lockdown, were down 85 per cent on usual, according to Mr Butteriss.
“Deliveries were up but it certainly didn’t compensate for the amount of sales that we lost through front-of-house,” he said.
The lockdown had “decimated” Geelong florists, especially those with a limited online presence, in what is normally their biggest day of the year, he said.
“It’s been bloody awful. When the announcement came on Friday everyone really panicked and said, ‘what are we going to do?’
“We had a lot of really big weddings that were cancelled straight away.
“For some of them this is the third time they’ve tried to get married and they’ve had to cancel again.
“All that specialist stock for weddings, we had to incorporate it into our other arrangements to sell.”
Mr Butteriss described Saturday’s Epping wholesale fruit, vegetable and flower market as the quietest he had ever seen on Valentine’s Day eve.
“There were copious amounts of roses and lots of disappointed growers,” he said.
Many Geelong florists cancelled very large stock orders in the wake of the lockdown, he said.
“We cancelled about half.
“We could have cancelled more but we bought half just to look after all the growers who have looked after us [throughout the pandemic].”
Highton Village Florist owner Jen Gross also cancelled large orders at the last minute on Friday to soften the impact of the five-day lockdown.
“In my 39 years it was the quietest Valentine’s Day I’ve had,” she said.
“My sales were down 40 per cent. We do not have a huge amount of flowers left [only] because I [cancelled those orders].
“I didn’t want to get stuck with thousands of dollars of stock that I couldn’t sell.
“Only having a few hours’ notice [of the lockdown] makes it hard.”
Both Ms Gross and Mr Butteriss thanked Geelong locals for their “unreal” support buying flowers throughout the pandemic.
