"Soul-destroying" prices at the flower markets ahead of Mother’s Day mean profits will be slim, florists say.
"There's always an increase in the cost of flowers on Valentine's and Mother's day, but this year it was bananas,” Rosie Holt, owner of Rose Tinted Flowers in Auckland, said.
The florists at Christchurch family-owned florist Miss Feaver said the prices are the highest they've seen in 30 years.
"We would be paying more for things in auction than we were selling them in the shop last week, probably thre times what they normally would be, maybe four times," Miss Feaver's Jess Chamberlain told 1 NEWS.
United Flower Growers, which is behind flower auctions in our three largest cities, said in a statement that it puts the price spike down to high demand, which it expected for Mother's Day.
It said there are "some shortages of certain key varieties, roses especially, as growers had not been able to maintain the key production elements throughout lockdown to keep growth stages at the right levels."
It also added that there's been transportation issues for North Island growers getting stock to the South Island.
"With the planes not operating, we can't get products in from overseas, and we also can't get products from the North Island," Miss Feaver's Ms Chamberlain said.
Ms Holt said she usually pays up to $15 for a bunch of roses, jumping to around $25 at Mother’s day, but at the auction yesterday some went for upwards of $40.
"When you work out what you need to retail that for, it works out $13 a stem… we don’t want to send out a $50 bouquet with five stems in it, that's not fair," she said.
Ms Holt thinks on top of the supply chain issues, florists may be struggling with the way the auctions are being run under Level 3 restrictions.
"Usually we can see all the product in the auction hall… we have real idea what's there and doing it online, you can’t see the product available," she said.
"I think people are maybe panicking and are saying, 'I need this product, I'll pay what it takes to get it.'"
Florists 1 NEWS spoke to said they’d absorb the extra cost, and while they don't think they’ll make a loss this Mother's Day, profit will be "flat".
Some have offered customers less variety to cope.
Many say they're just happy to be operating, and are wishing Kiwi mums a happy Mother's Day.
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