Entrepreneurs trade ideas on how to lower their costs

By TAM MOORE

For the Capital Press

CENTRAL POINT, Ore. -- From those setting up their first cut-flower venture to veterans of two decades, members of the Association of Specialty Cut Flower Growers met here June 26 for their regional meeting.

It was part "how to," and part dreams of taking on the South American floral importers through direct sales brokered over the Internet.

"The philosophy of this association has always been to share knowledge so we can become better growers," said Don Mitchell, owner of Flora Pacifica in Brookings, Ore. He's one of the handful of growers who met in Atlanta in 1988 to launch the association as a forum for marketing and production of field and greenhouse floral plants.

Mitchell spent 15 minutes, some of it in a dialog with Pat Zweifel of Oregon Coast Flowers in Tillamook, Ore., sharing his experience of raising and shipping hydrangeas, one of the many crops Flora Pacifica produces. Among the new information is a gel pack that absorbs water. Frozen overnight, it is part of an insulated foil package Mitchell uses to ship fresh hydrangea flowers.

The supplier of both items is Insulated Products Corp., of Commerce, Calif.

It wasn't a grower but a florist who sparked the most discussion during several hours of informal information sharing. Brandon Kirkland of Ashland, Ore., is 10 years into his career as a retail florist, but on the side he's an Internet entrepreneur offering website design and consulting services.

"My goal is to link the farmer and the florist; I want to become the Amazon.com for the floral industry," Kirkland said, referring to his website Epicflowers.com .

The sticking point for Pacific Northwest growers is the high freight rates charged for overnight parcel delivery. As some growers pointed out, the California Association of Flower Growers and Shippers has a transportation program large enough to earn substantial discounts from overnight freight handlers. It's a members-only deal, and there's nothing like it in Oregon or Washington.

Kirkland listened as grower after grower talked of current freight rates being about as much as the producer's cost of shipping flowers. Admitting he hasn't "figured out the financial model" for his farm-to-florist Internet shopping mall, Kirkland said there's strong interest in selling directly through the Internet.

Many participants were worried about pricing their product to compete with the volume floral imports from South America that are readily available in most West Coast cities.

In afternoon tours, the visiting growers looked at new varieties of roses, including some from Germany in a USDA quarantine plot, and a sprawling cut flower production farm.