The Food and Flower Business

Here's something you might not know about Kevin and I. In addition to owning two flower shops at the same time, we also owned a Bagel and Muffin shop. 3 businesses at one time, that was crazy and not something I recommend. 

The food business called "Great American Muffin and Bagel" was an existing business we bought that was located in the food court of the complex where our Princeton, NJ store was located, which was very convenient. Because we were already in the delivery business, we used our existing staff and vans to start doing food deliveries, many years before that was common. Think pizza delivery before DoorDash and UberEats. 

I saw a post in a Floral Group on Facebook the other day that got me to thinking it might be time to do a reminder post about running a business with a perishable product. Like flowers, the food business take a mostly perishable product that requires it to be transformed. In our business, muffins and bagels were baked fresh daily and at the end of the day, any unsold product had to be tossed. When we bought the business, we had no idea what running a food establishment required so we took our que from the Manager that came with the sale. We learned very quickly that over baking could eat into any profits very quickly and so tracking of tossed product was necessary. Like flowers that come in and out of demand, muffin and bagel flavors do the same. As owners who were "there" but had other business to attend to, we relied very heavily on our Manager and staff to keep track of what customers wanted, what they were buying and what they weren't. 

That's where tracking toss comes in. At the end of each day, as product was tossed, the staff needed to record the number of each being tossed. This information was used the next day by the baker who would determine what flavors to make and how many of each. I can't stress enough how important this was in daily operations to keep the business profitable. 

Now thinking of flowers, there are times when product arrives in poor condition and your wholesaler gives you a credit but what about the times when it just doesn't sell fast enough? Do you track what you are throwing out? If not, you really should. Why? Because it's a great way to help decide what to buy. Are you throwing out too many stems of sensitive flowers that don't last long? When that happened to me I made the decision to narrow down the types of flowers, keeping to the hardier varieties. It made a huge different in my cost of goods and my customers didn't seem to care. It went completely unnoticed. 

I even found that we were throwing out way too many roses. Roses, you might think, how could that be? What I realized was that I was trying to keep way too many colors in stock at all times. Some of the more unique colors that were hard to describe to customers on the phone just weren't used as quickly as the more common colors. Tracking my toss on flowers like these gave me valuable insight into what I should cut back on and the affect on my bottom line was immediate. It's great to have buckets and buckets of simple flowers such as carnations, daisies and alstroemeria but if you are tossing 100's of them away every month, something just isn't right. 

Honestly, without tracking your toss and looking at a monthly report, it's hard to make that connection and adjust your buying. For me, this was a huge eye opener and the first thing I did was cut back on my standing orders. For me, I found that committing to a certain number of flowers all year long really didn't make sense. I know you might think the price savings was worth it, but what I found was that during slower months like the July, August, January, I was able to take advantage of flower deals from my wholesalers. I found that during busier months such as May, December and all of wedding season, the standing order flowers really didn't help me with the orders I had to fill during those times. The colors were never right. Paying a higher price for the exact flowers and colors I needed, made more sense. My wholesale rep freaked out but I had to do what was right for me. 

So, if you are not currently tracking toss, I'd suggest you start right away. It's very easy to do. Here's how we did it. Each designer had a sheet at their station listing most of the flowers that we kept in stock. They also had a "Toss Bucket" under their station. Any flower they tossed because it was past it's prime, damaged or broken, went into this bucket. At the end of their shift, they went through the bucket, counting the different flower stems and recording them on their toss sheet. The toss sheets could be used for a whole week, or even a month. They were then entered into a spread sheet recording the number of each stem and an average cost per piece. These totals and amount where shared with me as the buyer so that I could take corrective action on my buying. Kevin, as the accountant, also used these figures to share with the design staff a total cost of unsellable flowers each month, as a percentage. Because our designers earned a bonus based on keeping the cost of goods as low as possible, it helped them to know what flowers they might need to use faster or be more aggressive receiving credits from the wholesaler when imperfect flowers arrived. Because this affected their bonus, there was no incentive to "stuff" or add unpaid for flowers into a design. Even if you work alone and are the only designer, tracking toss is still a good idea. You don't know, what you don't know and those numbers don't lie! 

I hope that wasn't too long winded. I think it's a great time to starting tracking toss, especially with the holiday season fast approaching! Wishing you all a happy end of summer and a prosperous Fall season!