Flower prices to jack up next week

CEBU, Philippines - While the prices of flowers at Carbon Public Market and several flower shops in Cebu remain unmoved at the moment, vendors warned of price escalations next week ahead of All Saints and Souls Days.

Holiday best-sellers Malaysian mums, which are imported in variety but locally grown in Barangay Busay, are still selling at their regular rates of P60 to P80 per bundle.

Various species of gladula, depending on the petal color, remain fetching at P30 to P50 per bunch. Aster, on the other hand, is still sold at P25.

The prices of chrysanthemums have also not changed from the usual P100 per bunch, while lilium and stargazer varieties are still pegged at the normal P200 rate per stick.

Surge

Vendors, however, are expecting a surge in the demand for these flowers as early as five days to All Saints.

Because of this, flower stalls at Carbon have noted that between October 26 to November 1, they will be upping their prices by almost twice as much.

Vendors attribute the price movement to the higher demand, higher cost of raw materials from their suppliers, as well as the added costs on transportation.

Other flower varieties are found out to be sourced from the farms in Baguio City and some parts of Mindanao such as Davao and Cagayan de Oro City.

On ordinary business days, Dolly Tabacon, a flower vendor, told The FREEMAN their smallest flower arrangement costs P50, adding that the arrangement is normally profuse.

Next week, however, aside from jacking up flower prices, they will also be reducing the number of flowers in each arrangement.

Tabacon said they can sell out about 150 small flower baskets during this season.

Quake’s impact

But Tabacon is also worried that the recent earthquake might impact on the buying attitude of common people.

“Ang ilang ipalit og buwak, ila nalang sigurong tagu-an o gamiton para ipaayo sa ilang balay (Instead of buying flowers, people might save their money or use it to fix their homes due to the earthquake’s aftermath),” Tabacon explained.

Another flower vendor Rosemarie Coderra said the flower business in Carbon has been affected by their regular bulk customers who have shifted to source their flowers directly from Busay flower farms.

She recalled that a few years back, they used to have a few big-ticket customers from Ilo-Ilo, but these customers have now already opted for direct sourcing, going to Busay a few days before the peak season to gather supplies.

Meanwhile, several flower shops in Cebu have noted they will be making extra orders from suppliers in anticipation for next week's healthy demand. (FREEMAN)