In This Issue ...

1. Save The Date: 2021 Fun 'N Sun Convention
2. FedEx Office Discounts for CalFlowers Members
3. CalFlowers Social Media
4. Featured NEW Members
5. Transportation
6. New Members 

CalFlowers
Social Media

Visit the CalFlowers Facebook page 

Check in for news, upcoming events, photos, and topical items.  

June
Flower Of The Month:

THE ROSE

There’s a reason that roses have inspired poets and painters for centuries. And if you only know about “grocery store” roses, think again.

There are roses for every imaginable taste, from climbing roses and shrubs to long-stemmed roses.

Symbolically, the rose has more meanings than one can count!

• A pink rose means perfect happiness, while a red rose means “I love you.”
• A white rose signifies innocence, purity, and new beginnings. 
• A yellow rose conveys jealousy.

A bouquet of roses means sincere gratitude, whereas a single rose amplifies the meaning of the color 

(a single red rose means “I REALLY love you”).

For Members Only Access

Past CalFlowers Newsletters

Click Here to view past CalFlowers Newsletters, now available on our website.

CalFlowers News

Save The Date:
2021 Fun 'N Sun Convention

We're excited to announce the dates and location of CalFlowers Fun 'N Sun Convention in 2021! 

August 25 - 28, 2021

Spend the end of your summer in Coronado, enjoying the Fun 'N Sun Convention at the iconic Hotel del Coronado.  Click Here to learn more.

Join us as we celebrate CalFlowers
80th Anniversary (1941 - 2021)

Fun ‘N Sun is a floral industry convention like no other. Join colleagues from around the country and experience firsthand the farms that grow your California flowers – along with informative programs and quality networking opportunities.

Flower Farm Tours • Flower Fair • Industry Education • 
Golf Tournament

For questions please contact:
Monnaie Pepin at (831) 479-4912 Ext. 4

FedEx Office Discounts For CalFlowers Members

FedEx Office is offering CalFlowers members significant discounts on printing and production projects ranging from simple black and white copy jobs to signage and banners.

Click Here to learn more and sign up to start saving today!

FedEx Office discounts and benefits available to members:

• Over 81% discount off black and white copies *
• Over 53% discount off color copies *
• 15% off all other services related to print
• Access to 2,000 FedEx Offices nationwide
• Free local delivery for most print projects $25 or more within 30 miles of the production center

CalFlowers Social Media

CalFlowers utilizes social media to help spread the word of our members, feature you across our platforms, and support each and every one of you. We want to see you succeed, share your images & campaigns, keep you up to date and so much more. 

We have hopes to allow you to mingle with others that have the same attitude, interest and goals. A community with support, a safe place to ask questions, reach out for help, but most of all, platforms where you will be surrounded with like-minded members. 

Click Here for CalFlowers Facebook Group

Click Here for CalFlowers Facebook Page

Find us on Instagram: @Calflowers_association 

Any questions or comments please contact:
Lani Conklin (831) 479-4912 Ext. 2 or via email: [email protected]

Featured New Members

What happens when you combine two different business owners who are equally passionate about all things that bloom?  You get one heck of a colorful bouquet of ideas all fueled by a love for serving and loving people well. 

Crystal and Rae (pictured left) are two southern gals who run separate wedding planning and floral design businesses and love giving people beautiful experiences.  As entrepreneurs, they have a lot in common which kicked off their friendship over 5 years ago.  Flowers make them happy. Really happy. And sharing that with others thrills them to our core. Crystal and Rae believe nature can nurture your soul and flower stains with dirty fingernails tells of a good day.

So, why add another business to both of their busy lineups?  The answer is pretty simple:  they love sharing their knowledge and encouraging others to create.  With almost 20 years of combined experience, their passion for educating others on florals and design makes their hearts burst with excitement.  

They just launched our first Basics To Blooms Box in May!  This subscription-based service takes the flower party directly to our customers’ homes!  Each month they prepare a box of fresh blooms and supplies and deliver them to our “Bloomers”.  With their membership, they are part of a private group where they show them step by step how to arrange the flowers in that month’s box.  Crystal and Rae are loving every minute of it and of course, have a few more ideas up their “flower aprons”!

Click Here to learn more about Basics To Blooms.

Blue Sky Flower Farm started over a decade ago with just a few peonies in their city lot. Rachael and her husband Jon had been dreaming of Blue Sky Flower Farm for as long as they could remember. They both have horticulture degrees and have worked in the industry for over 30 years combined. While still working full time, along with raising their children (and chickens), they started to grow the farm by adding woody cuts (specialty willows and dogwoods) on a small scale in a pasture at Jon’s family’s Brown Swiss dairy farm.

In 2014, they were able to purchase their own 10-acre farm 30 miles from Minneapolis – St. Paul and currently have 2 acres in cut flower production. Growing unique woody cuts and perennial cut flowers not commonly found on the market have been their niche. They also grow many different annual species, tulips, dahlias and ornamental fall items.

Jon and Rachael (pictured right) grow sustainably and thoughtfully and truly enjoy the creativity and beauty in farming. Their farm specializes in mixed bouquets for their Flower Bouquet Share (based on the CSA model) and they also provide mixed bouquets to occasional shops, retail stores and groceries. Locally they sell our blooms at the Twin Cities Flower Exchange (a local wholesale flower hub) and direct to designers. Blue Sky Flower Farm ships nationally to garden centers, landscape design firms, floral designers and public gardens. While this dream has turned into an immense amount of work and long hours farming, they are so grateful for this opportunity.

Click Here to learn more about Blue Sky Flower Farm.

Surrounded by the Rocky Mountains and centered along the Wasatch Front is where you will find this very well-known and successful flower business.  Ensign Wholesale Floral, the biggest and best wholesale company in Utah started in 1955, 65 years ago, and was located in downtown Salt Lake City. They started as a small business with most of the flowers grown in the Salt Lake Valley and California.   

In 2015, Ensign moved to a new updated building and a convenient location at 2985 South 300 West, Salt Lake City.  Motivation for the move was the opportunity to display more beautiful spacious coolers for the large range of fresh cut flowers that are now 97% of overall sales.  Rodger Callister, the general manager, who came on board in 2010 had major goals he wanted to accomplish. This included an excellence in management, value, communication, and service.

Why should you buy their flowers? Rodger boasts that Ensign buys the best flowers from the best farms in the world!  Flowers arrive daily from California, Northwest US, Ecuador, Columbia, Holland, and other countries.  Created in the past 10 years are 12 new delivery routes, 20 unique customer box special standing orders, a bouquet business, and a beautiful website with an extensive flower gallery.  Their amazing team worked and survived the first 3 months of Covid-19 and the Utah Earthquake, while maintaining lower, but steady sales. Ensign remained open for business on every regular workday. The plan is to be on the cutting edge for many more years to come. 

Click Here to learn more about Ensign Wholesale Floral.

GotFlowers provides a cloud-based service with productivity apps on smartphones that improve the profitability of retail florists and wholesale suppliers.  With an always-on cloud service to manage all aspects of the business, retail florists can benefit from many profit-oriented features unique to GotFlowers. Comprehensive, schedule-driven rules help automate redundant tasks and help save on labor and operations.

Services include Websites, Order Management, Design and Recipe Management, and Delivery Management.

Members of CalFlowers are eligible to have the setup fees waived.  This is a $1200 value!

Click Here to learn more about GotFlowers.

Transportation

As a reminder, current shipping rates and program information is on the CalFlowers Members' Only website.  Members using their logins can access this information anytime.  Rates on FedEx, GLS, OnTrac, and airlines can all be found, as well as other handy information.  For questions or comments on any of our programs, please contact Chris Johnson for assistance at (760) 533-5580 or [email protected].

To all of our new members who are just starting with FedEx shipping, FedEx has a nice “Customer Training” service that is available upon request.  This service offers shipper direct one-on-one assistance from FedEx covering many of the questions new shippers have.  If interested, members just need to contact Chris Johnson [email protected] to sign up.

As a reminder, the Money Back Guarantee (MBG) is still suspended until further notice due to the COVID pandemic. Also bear in mind, when the MBG is reinstated, shippers must make the request no later than 15 days from the invoice date.  Requests after the 15 day time period will not be honored.

We also want to remind members that FedEx SameDay is also available to members who require SameDay delivery options.  For more information, please contact Chris Johnson at [email protected].

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 wish to move PALLETIZED freight on FedEx, CalFlowers can help direct you to customized solutions and pricing. FedEx Freight is an excellent option when your shipments call for pallets. Interested members should contact Chris Johnson at [email protected] for more information.

GLS has a nice company promotional video that is worth checking out.  

Visit https://youtu.be/nH_ZVFiXDdI to have a look.  

The CalFlowers GLS program is one of our fastest growing, most value-priced offerings, with discounts over 70% off standard rates.  GLS provides our members express door-to-door services to CA, AZ, NV, OR, WA, NM, UT and ID. 

Click Here to learn more about GLS.  

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].     

For members looking for service into Colorado, Ontrac offers 2 day service from California at no extra cost.   Delivery areas are limited so be sure to check with OnTrac.

We know that OnTrac got their start in California and services every ZIP code within California, but did you know OnTrac also services seven other Western States?  OnTrac has 2-day service into WA, OR, ID, NV, UT, AZ, and CO.  And to help understand the service parameters, OnTrac has a very nice “Time and Transit Map” under Zip Tools on their website.  This handy map loaded from YOUR zip code helps you understand OnTrac’s overnight commitment areas.  Click Here to download your map.

Airlines:

In Airline news, for those members that missed our announcement, CalFlowers has put together a new program with JetBlue Cargo.   JetBlue offers CalFlowers members exceptional express prices out of LAX to Boston, New York, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale and Puerto Rico. These new rates are some of the best we’ve see in some time.  For more information, please contact Chris Johnson at [email protected] or Mark Friedenthal at JetBlue Blue Cargo (310) 490-2659.

If you haven’t yet heard about the new CalFlowers / Alaska Airlines shipping program, this exclusive offer is now available for CalFlowers members. 

Beginning immediately, Alaska Airlines has lowered the minimum charge from $75 to $50 per waybill.  This improvement should significantly add more savings to this already value packed shipping program.

The new Priority Rates are the best we have seen in years and with the Virgin merger completed, Alaska Airlines has an extensive network servicing major popular destinations all across the U.S. Our program works outbound and inbound out of SAN, LAX, and SFO.  To take advantage of this exceptional program, interested members must sign up.  Please contact Chris Johnson to get started at (760) 533-5580 or [email protected].

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.

63 New Members

We are pleased to welcome the following 63 new CalFlowers members from March 1 - June 15, 2020:

538 W. Trimble Rd.
San Jose, CA 95131
www.cafgs.org 

Ph. 831-479-4912 | Fax 831-479-4914