We don't need a badge for credibility. We just need to be found

It's been fascinating to see differing opinions unfold on what flower farmers in New Zealand and Australia need to build a thriving industry. One thing kept surfacing, buried under a dozen other ideas and points of view.

That one thing? Visibility.

That's the nub of it. You can't buy from a grower you can't find.

Collective discussions are rarely tidy. For every idea, there's a contrary one. Ideas get repeated, adapted, dropped, picked up again. In our case, it revolved around having an industry body or a local flower brand.

After a rich and varied 90-minute discussion in a recent session with FBA members, we came back round to this one thing.

Having something that would enable more people to buy flowers direct from growers in their local area.

This made the most commercial sense and would make the biggest difference to the most flower businesses, fastest.

Ultimately, this is about provenance - people knowing where their flowers come from and who grew them.

The bigger conversations about sustainability and the environmental benefits of seasonal flowers matter, of course. But we think that will be a natural by-product of people knowing where local flower farms are and how to buy from them.

The credibility of locally grown flowers will also come from people experiencing the difference of buying direct.

No single badge will ever tell the story of provenance, but it can help people find it.

Often our instincts are to persuade all people of the merits of farm-fresh flowers. Yet good marketing serves a narrowly defined audience.

So our immediate efforts will focus on what will actually help customers who are already looking to buy local flowers, or find a grower to buy from, doing that with ease.

The aim is that a florist who wants to source direct from the farm, can. A flower buyer who wants to send flowers to a loved one from a local grower can find who's local with ease. Someone doing their own arranging can buy larger amounts direct from the grower, and knows exactly who offers it.

We know this is what people want to do. It's just not as easy to do right now.

So we're keeping it simple - a core point of reference, and a symbol that points people back to that one place.

We're not starting from scratch. A simple directory - the NZ Flower Collective - was built a few years back during the pandemic. This has shown the usefulness of having a point of reference online. It also showed us that any directory must have simple ways to keep it updated.

That's where we'll start to build something better for the future - a foundation for greater awareness and advocacy in New Zealand and Australia.

In other words - give growers visibility, so people can see that together, flower farms make up a distinctive part of a bigger flower industry.

It's an exciting possibility that needs energy and expertise to make any of this happen.

The next step is to bring together the willing hearts, minds and hands.

If this is something you'd want to help shape - not just hear about once it exists, but actually be part of working it out - I'd genuinely like to hear from you. Email me directly - hello@floralbusinessactivator.com

Written by: Julie Treanor - Owner of The Pickery and co-creator of The Floral Business Activator who can shake down a good idea to its core.