Bʏ Mᴀʀʏ Mᴡᴇɴᴅᴇ,
If you’re new to this business, welcome, but here’s what no one puts in the handbooks. Not every market you’re chasing will pay on time. Some won’t pay at all. Buyers will promise volumes they won’t commit to. Freight costs will wreck your budgets when you least expect it. And the weather will humble you every season.
People talk about targets, yields, and market access, but the real work is managing what happens between the crop and the airport. The missed picks, the last-minute orders, the cold room breakdown at 3 a.m., the shipment you’ll have to fight for space on.
No one tells you that your best staff might leave in peak season. That one bad spray decision can cost you a week’s worth of orders. That you’ll learn more from mistakes than from any training you’ll attend.
They also don’t tell you about the people who’ll quietly help you survive your first bad season. The client who gives you a second chance. The farm manager down the road who lends you boxes when your shipment overruns. The worker who spots a problem before it turns into a loss.
This industry is tough. It always has been. But if you stay sharp, own your mistakes, pay your people right, and deliver what you promise, it will give you back more than it takes.
And that’s why Floriweek exists: to tell the truths no one else will, to track what matters beyond the headlines, and to stand with the farms that keep this industry moving, one stem at a time. Forget the noise. Focus on your crop, your team, and your word. The rest you’ll figure out along the way.