I'm a florist
Fairly high end, we stock lovely stuff. We're in a busy location so often have to provide arrangements for surrounding businesses at very short notice, which is part of the reason we're always fully stocked.
It absolutely staggers me to this day how aggressive people are about the 'perceived' price of flowers in an independent shop. They are so used to supermarket prices that everything else seems dear by comparison.
For example, My cheapest rose is around £2. I pay about 50-60p for that. Industry mark up for flowers is usually X3 plus VAT. So 50p cost =£1.80 retail and we round up or down.
That flower that costs 50p has been grown ( usually in Holland) with all the care, watering, feed, light, heating that incurs. There will be wastage of the blooms that aren't saleable. Then the flower is cut, packaged, auctioned, repackaged and transported to the UK, where it is unpacked, conditioned ( leaves stripped, cut, placed in water with flower food) by me before going out for sale. And people piss and whinge about paying £2 for it!
Dutch flowers ARE more expensive, largely because you are supporting European minimum wages for the people in the industry. Supermarkets have their own farms in Africa so they have cut out the middle man. Much like the pressures on dairy farmers, the flower yield is expected to be X and fuck what it costs you in water, human labour or cost cutting on things like pesticides. Supermarkets will withdraw their patronage at a moments notice. Farms in Kenya have had to re route water needed for things like, you know; crops and drinking water in order to maintain contracts with big supermarkets. It's absolutely terrible, and I'm sure the same with food crops so we can have asparagus in February or whatever.
Until recently, one big chain used pesticides in Africa that were banned in Europe that could send the handler blind. The workers were on literally pennies a day and cut of with nothing if they got sick from pesticide use. So they were then blind and penniless. Absolutely shocking.
It makes me fucking RAGE when the Instagram generation are all like boo boo I can't have peonies in January... well you can but we'll have to fly them in from New Zealand and they'll be £15 a stem. I'm not prepared to do that even if you can afford it because I try and keep things as sustainable as possible.
We buy a lot of British flowers, but the UK flower industry is about ten years behind Holland in terms of diversity and production volume. After Brexit when prices go through the roof, a lot more people will be buying from supermarkets, with the associated human cost. The UK and Channel Islands won't be able to cope with demand. A lot of small florists will have to close. Ours is looking ropey, even though we're popular and successful. Some people I know are looking into becoming growers, but there's a ten year gap between starting and being able to produce commercially viable blooms.
Flowers are a luxury, not a necessity. I really couldn't give a shit when you moan at me about prices. I've been in the industry for 30 years, I earn about £26K a year. And that's in London. I absolutely love my job. But please stop making me feel like I'm prising money from your hands that's needed for your children's medication. 