Locally grown cut flowers market analysis for southern Georgia

A greenhouse producer in south Georgia was interested in exploring the potential for converting his greenhouses into a cut flower operation. The producer has a number of greenhouses that produce vegetable plants for transplanting. However, the market for vegetable transplants is changing as producers grow and need larger suppliers. As a result, there is a need to find a new product to produce in the greenhouses to keep the business viable. Using the internet yellow pages, online florist directories, and Select Phone Software, a list of 100 florists in south Georgia and north Florida was compiled for this project. Originally, the study targeted florists located within a fifty miles radius of Grady County but was expanded to include Macon and Columbus, Georgia. Table 1 presents a list of the represented cities, the number of identified florists, and number of completed interviews by city. The data was collected using a telephone survey over a two month period, February and March. Only those florists that indicated they would be willing to purchase locally grown flowers were interviewed, those that were not willing to purchase locally grown flowers were thanked for their time and dismissed.