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In This Issue ...
- Join Us At The Hotel del Coronado!
- 2022-2023 Membership Directories Have Been Mailed
- Don't Forget To Download 'That Flower Feeling' Assets
- Are You Attending WF&FSA - 2022 FDC In Miami? So Are We!
- CalFlowers "New Member" Spotlight
- Transportation
- Welcome New CalFlowers Member
Upcoming
2022 Events:
2022 Great Lakes Floral and Events Expo "Inspire"
March 4 - 6
DeVos Place
Grand Rapids, MI
WF&FSA Floral Distribution Conference 2022
"Breaking Boundaries - Bridging Divides"
March 7 - 9
The Doral, Miami, FL
IFPA - The Floral Conference
March 29, 2022 Anaheim Marriott Anaheim, CA USA
AIFD Symposium "Roots"
July 4 - 8
Caesars Forum Las Vegas Las Vegas, NV
Fun 'N Sun
"All About Flowers"
Aug. 29 - Sept. 1, 2022
Hotel del Coronado
Coronado, CA
Click Here to Rediscover the California legend - Hotel del Coronado.
Latest Legislation
Updates:
Click Here to read the latest Legislative updates.
February Birth Flowers:
With Valentine’s Day at the forefront of everyone’s mind in February, it may come as a surprise that the red rose is not February’s birth month flower. Instead, those born in the second month of the year are linked to the violet and primrose. Whether they’re your “birth” flowers or not, learn more about the history, meaning, and symbolism of the violet and primrose!
Not many flowers bloom in February (certainly not traditional roses, which are at their best in June). However, the tiny woodland plants of February brighten the landscape like purple, colorful slippers. Wild violets show off their purple-blue petals and heart-shaped leaves in the coldest months! Primroses, a small perennial woodland plant, also bloom in wintertime.
The Violet
The violet is one of the earliest blooming plants in the spring. Violets typically have heart-shaped leaves and asymmetrical flowers that vary in color. Many are violet, as their name suggests, while others are blue, yellow, white and cream. Some are even bicolored, often blue and yellow.
Native to Europe and Asia, the violet is indigenous to temperate regions in the Northern Hemisphere. Violets (Viola) are a genus of the Violaceae family. There are more than 400 species of violets in the genus.
The Primrose
With European origins, the primrose is part of the Primula genus, which contains more than 500 species, although it is not a member of the rose family. It is, however, one of the first blooming flowers in the spring.
The ancient Celts were thought to believe that large patches of primrose flowers were a gateway to the fairy realm.
It was once believed if you ate a primrose, you would then see a fairy.
An ancient belief centered around the ability of a primrose to ward off evil spirits. It is also thought to provide protection, safety, and love.
CalFlowers
Featured
"New Member" Spotlights
To see all of our past Featured "New Member" Spotlight stories Click Here.
If your company would like to be a featured "New Member", please contact Monnaie Pepin for more details.
Past CalFlowers Newsletters
Click Here to view past CalFlowers Newsletters now available on our website.
CalFlowers News
Our goal is to communicate with our members and interested parties on a monthly basis about recent, past, and upcoming events, program updates, and general information about CalFlowers engagement in the industry on behalf of the membership.
If you have an announcement or story you think our members should see, contact Monnaie Pepin, Director of Communications, Events and Administration.
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Join Us At The Hotel del Coronado!
The month of February is dominated by Valentine’s Day in our industry, and it is our sincere hope that each and every CalFlowers member had a robust and profitable holiday. Although Valentine’s Day always presents a unique set of challenges from supply to distribution, 2022 clearly had some additional obstacles to success. Reports from members indicate that it was a strong holiday with steady supply despite the obvious and significant logistical challenges.
 As we pass through the peak Valentine’s Day period and recognizing the very busy Spring holidays and upcoming wedding season, it’s an important time to look a bit forward on your floral calendar. Specifically, towards the outstanding CalFlowers Fun ‘N Sun convention, to be held August 29 – September 1 at the fabulous, iconic Hotel del Coronado.
Themed “All About Flowers”, this year’s convention will feature many of the same top attractions you have come to love about the California flower show. The golf tournament, the Flower Fair, the excellent networking opportunities will all be in full effect. Additionally, CalFlowers will be featuring our exciting, new ‘That Flower Feeling’ brand and the accompanying ‘Flowers. Self care made easy’ campaign. This consumer marketing effort is a generational opportunity for our entire industry to come together under one banner and truly impact floral consumption in the U.S. market. Over 50 million consumers will have been exposed to the campaign by the end of April, and CalFlowers will be seeking industry support and funding to perpetuate he current campaign and create new marketing assets for the entire industry.
Please be sure to add this exciting gathering of all industry segments to your calendars and watch for registration information coming soon. In the meantime, help your customers get ‘That Flower Feeling’ by utilizing the marketing assets already made available at Thatflowerfeling.org.
The entire board and staff of CalFlowers is looking forward to hosting you for a fun, productive, event designed to help you grow your business and forge new connections in our wonderful industry. Join us!
2022-2023 Membership Directories Have Been Mailed
 We are excited to announce that the "New" 2022-2023 Membership Directories have been mailed out to all CalFlowers Member Companies.
You can also view the 2022-2023 Membership Directory online by Clicking Here.
A big "Thank You" to all of our Membership Directory advertisers. If you would like to order additional directories please Click Here to visit our website to learn more.
Don't Forget To Download 'That Flower Feeling' Assets
 is a cooperative effort to get more Americans enjoying more flowers more often by pushing flowers into the culturally relevant “self care” space through a funny, edgy, shareable campaign called ‘Flowers. Self care made easy’.
CalFlowers has designed and launched this major consumer-direct campaign, and is sharing the full array of professional marketing assets with the entire floral industry – for free. It is our gift to the industry, and we hope everyone will join us in amplifying the current campaign, as well as pledging funding to keep the campaign going and produce new future campaigns.
CalFlowers is currently exploring a voluntary funding model, based on annual pledges from individual companies and trade associations. Our goal is to create an annual marketing fund that will support ongoing, consumer-direct marketing to increase flower consumption in the U.S. market. We are seeking support from all segments of the floral industry from production to retail and everything in between.
Visit www.thatflowerfeeling.org and click on the Partners tab to request access to all of the marketing campaign materials.
 
Are You Attending WF&FSA - 2022 FDC In Miami? So Are We!
Come visit our table top to learn more about 'That Flower Feeling' and pick up some cool swag! We look forward to seeing you all in Miami, FL.
CalFlowers New Member Spotlight
 POMP is a newly launched direct-to-consumer eCommerce brand bringing the highest quality rose and flower arrangements to the online market.
Surrounded by flowers before they could crawl, cousins Ivette (pictured left) & Steven (pictured below) developed a special appreciation for flowers from the day they were born. After leaving the nest to embark on journeys across Philadelphia and NYC, this cousin duo was shocked to experience the lack of quality and consistency when ordering flowers online and quickly realized that they weren’t alone.
After researching the market, they learned of the challenges many online delivery companies face and took it upon themselves to bring decades of growing and floral knowledge to the online floral consumer.
With tremendous passion and pride, this cousin duo launched is bringing an exceptional and consistent floral experience from farm-to-table. With national next day delivery, POMP delivers an unmatched floral experience to the online market, as well as an unparalleled level of accountability, authenticity, and integrity.
POMP is predominantly female run and operates with a diverse and inclusive team. The company is headquartered in Miami and welcomes the opportunity to connect with anyone with a shared passion and vision for building a beautiful business in the online floral category that delights its customers, honors its promises, and does well while doing good every step of the way!
If you are a florist, consumer, passionate individual, or anyone in between that would be interested in discussing potential partnership opportunities, please feel free to reach out to Ivette ([email protected]) or Steven ([email protected]) directly – they would love to see what you can do together!
Transportation
As the labor market continues to be problematic, logistics overall is still challenging but showing some improvement. Let’s hope things get progressively better as we approach Mother’s Day.
For our FedEx shippers, I strongly recommend checking the “Service Alerts” section of the FedEx website each morning for the latest. Here is the link: : https://www.fedex.com/en-us/service-alerts.html . Here you will find the most current alerts and service disruption news updated each day.
These Service Alerts are issued daily and can be helpful in managing your expectations during inclement weather.
As a reminder, FedEx has reinstated the Money Back Guarantee (MBG) for CalFlowers members, however, keep in mind, delays due to hazardous or disruptive weather are not eligible for shipping credits.
As costs rise for our carriers, surcharges have risen as well across the board. For those members wanting to reference the latest FedEx Surcharges and Fees click here https://www.fedex.com/content/dam/fedex/us-united-states/services/FXE_FXG_Surcharges_and_Fees_2022.pdf. Remember, CalFlowers members have many significant discounts off of these surcharges which add excellent value to our program. For a list our surcharge discounts, please refer to the FedEx Program Summary on our website.
For members looking for the latest Program Summary and Rates for 2022, we now have them posted up on our website for review.
For qualifying members wanting to contact their local FedEx representative, feel free to contact me and I will put you in touch with the right person. It’s always a good idea to establish a relationship with your local FedEx field representatives who can help out when you need them or have questions.
To all our new members who are just starting with FedEx shipping, they have a nice “Customer Training” service that is available upon request. This service offers shippers direct one-on-one assistance from FedEx covering many of the questions new shippers may have. If you are interested in signing up, please contact Chris Johnson [email protected]. FedEx also has some excellent information for new shippers on their website. Visit: https://www.fedex.com/en-us/get-started.html for a good summary of what FedEx offers
For members needing FedEx Tech Support, this phone number takes your right into the department (877) 339-2774. They can help with many tech-related issues including guidance regarding on-line shipping platforms.
We would also like to remind members to stay current with their FedEx Express shipping invoices. FedEx payment terms are 15 days. All members shipping on FedEx Express are expected to stay within the FedEx payment terms. To obtain your invoice details and payment options, please contact FedEx Customer Service.
For members who have not downloaded the GLS 2022 Program Summary and Pricing, we have it available on our website. This year we negotiated a modest 3% increase vs the 5.9% increase that went into effect for 2022.
Also, GLS is reporting record volumes at this time. Combine this with weather and labor shortages causing operational challenges, on-time deliveries in some areas can be affected.
The good news here is that even though GLS has not officially re-instated their Money Back Guarantee (shipping costs), they HAVE amended that policy for CalFlowers members. Our agreement with GLS now states that they will credit shipping costs to member shippers if the shipment is not delivered on the scheduled day of delivery. Members will need to request this within 48 hours by contacting customer service by sending an email to: [email protected]. Include your account number, tracking number and explanation. Let them know you are seeking shipping charges credited.
Regarding claims on product (inside the box) GLS will entertain a claim if the box is missing / lost, or damage is present on the exterior of the package. GLS will not generally process a claim simply if a box is delivered late. For complete details, please visit www.gls-us.com
The CalFlowers GLS program is one of our fastest growing, most value-priced offerings, with discounts over 70% off standard rates. GLS offers later pick-ups and earlier deliveries while providing express door-to-door services covering CA, AZ, NV, OR, WA, NM, UT, and ID. Members who want to ship on GLS must sign up in advance. It’s easy and just takes a few minutes. Please contact Chris Johnson for more details at (760) 533-5580 or [email protected].
Please use the Delivery Rates & Times Calculator to view delivery dates and estimated.
Airlines:
We have just learned that Michael Yu, our longtime Alaska Airlines Account Manager has accepted a new promotion within the company and will no longer be our Alaska contact. He will certainly be missed. However, we have new Account Manager in Mike Narowski. Mike comes to us with a wide variety of air carrier experience and can be reached at [email protected]
If you have been taking advantage of our new CalFlowers/Alaska Airlines shipping program, you know this offering really delivers when it comes to value. Our program offers excellent pricing to many areas of the country from California, while adding a few new destinations such as Seattle, Portland, and Anchorage. Check out all the program details on our website.
As a reminder, JetBlue offers CalFlowers members exceptional express prices out of LAX / SFO to Boston, New York, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Puerto Rico and now NEWARK (EWR).
These new rates are some of the best that we’ve see in some time. For more information, please contact Chris Johnson at [email protected] or Mark Friedenthal at JetBlue Cargo (310) 490-2659.
NOTE: Transportation Rate information and documents are viewable/downloadable as PDFs on the CalFlowers Members Only site. Please note that these documents are considered sensitive material and are available to the primary contacts for Ag Buddy, Associate Floral, Associate Grower, and Floral members.
Welcome New CalFlowers Member
We are pleased to welcome the following new CalFlowers member from January 12 - February 15, 2022:
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