Industry Insider Interview with David Register of FernTrust

I am very excited to be starting a BRAND NEW interview series highlighting flower industry insiders…growers, wholesalers, manufacturers…which will be appearing every couple of months in the uBloom Blog. These Industry Insider Interviews will give uBloomers an exclusive "behind the scenes" look at the various companies in the floral world who supply us florists with all the fresh and hard good materials we use everyday to run successful businesses. These interviews will be similar our Featured uBloomer interviews, but with more of a focus on the PRODUCTS offered by these floral companies. I hope that you enjoy these interviews and take the time to check out the products and services offered by these wonderful floral businesses.David Register is the Executive Vice-President of FernTrust , a grower of high quality cut ferns and foliages, located in Seville, FL. FernTrust’s exclusive "Fern Cool" care and handling system ensures that every stem of foliage they ship is super fresh and long lasting. J highly recommends FernTrust products and uses them regularly in his JTV webisodes. We also love that FernTrust is a proud sponsor of uBloom! So think FernTrust when you need fabulous foliages for impressive designs…every time!Give me a little background on FernTrust’s beginnings. FernTrust was formed as an agricultural cooperative in 1986 by three families with a rich agricultural heritage. We formed together to gain efficiencies in shipping, packing, research and marketing activities as a group that none of us could achieve as individuals. Our goal at that time was to be able to meet the growing demand for floral greens in the European marketplace. Over the last decade we have changed our focus to better serve our domestic and Canadian market with our new line of Fabulous Foliages.What is FernTrust’s business philosophy?Fabulous Foliage with Exceptional customer service.What are some of the products FernTrust offers?If its GREEN we offer it… and any other foliage items you can dream of… and if mother nature doesn’t make it in the color you need, we can fix that also with our colorfresh line of products.What are your top 3 sellers?Leatherleaf, Fabulous Foliage Bouquets and ColorFresh Tree Fern.What is one product that you wish florists knew more about?Our Fabulous Foliage Bouquets , they are design ready and can save Florists so much in both time and money every day of the week, not just holidays!What is your position at FernTrust and what does your typical day on the job entail? I am the Executive Vice President of FernTrust. My typical day consists of working with our Team leaders in Operations, Sales and Marketing and Accounting to help them achieve the goals they have set for our company to continue to grow and thrive in a very competitive industry. They are the real heart and soul of FernTrust that make things happen.What is one thing you couldn’t live without on your job?My co-workers, they are the best in the industry! And also maybe my iPhone ;-)When you’re not managing ferns, what do you enjoy doing?Growing up in the country and being an outdoorsy type of guy, you can find me out on the ocean fishing or being deep in the woods with my family. We also enjoy our horses and working with other livestock on our farm.What are some things that you wish florists understood about growers in general?That we are farmers. Everything we grow depends on some amount of cooperation with mother nature, at times she is very good to us, but also there are times like over the last two months when she is a very harsh task master. We toil long hard hours to try and combat what she throws at us, we do it because we both love the land and to see our beautiful products brought to life all over the world by talented floral designers.What is your favorite and least favorite thing about your job?My favorite thing is having the opportunity to meet many wonderful people from all over the world that I have become friends with over the years. My least favorite thing is being stuck in my office way to many hours when I would like being outside getting my hands dirty working on our farm.Lots of work goes in to growing great greens, briefly discuss the growing/harvesting/shipping process at FernTrustThe crops harvested at FernTrust are grown by our member farms, a good portion of them are owned either by family members or very close friends that are all experts in the particular crops that they grow. When they are ready for harvest, FernTrust steps in and carefully cuts each stem of foliage by hand into bunches of between 5 to 25 stems depending on the variety. Within 2 hours of being cut, they enter our FernCool process that chills them very quickly to promote the longest shelf life in the industry. Once in our cold chain, they are totally processed and packaged inside of a controlled cold environment, the only one in the greens industry. They are shipped on refrigerated trucks and delivered to the major floral trucks lines for delivery to wholesalers all over the world.Florida recently experienced a prolonged & devastating cold snap. Talk about your efforts to help keep your crops from freezing.This year in the month of January, we experienced over 20 nights of below freezing temperatures, with many nights in the upper teens to low twenties. In order to try and protect as many of the foliages as possible, temperatures are monitored very closely by riding through our fields all night long with trucks equipped with specialized instant read thermometers. When the freezing mark is reached, large diesel motors are cranked to pump water onto our shade structures to form mini igloos to trap heat inside of them. Even with this system when weather is this cold for as many hours as it was, many of the immature fronds were damaged.In your opinion, what is the current state of the growing industry when it comes to fresh cut flowers and greens?It becomes more and more competitive every year. The sad part is what comes with that is downward pressure on prices. When growers start cutting costs too deep, quality is compromised and many inferior products get out into the market place. Many times these differences are impossible to spot until the consumer gets flowers and they die very quickly. I hope that people in our industry will learn that it will only continue to grow and thrive when customers at the end of the chain are totally satisfied. A few pennies to the grower sometimes makes the difference on the care that their plants received during the growing process. Our plants are our babies in the floral industry, do we want our babies - our future - going to the cheapest nurseries, schools and universities, or do we want the best for them so they make us look good. Make sure you choose your growers wisely.Tell us about any NEW products or ideas you are getting ready to market OR discuss what’s next for FernTrust.We are constantly looking to create new product lines to make our current offers better and on trend. Our Zen Bouquet line offers great promise and our 2010 ColorFresh line up is spectacular!