Why are florists so expensive?

Florists like myself are often seen as expensive and that we overcharge, especially when compared to flowers sold at supermarkets.
The truth lies on the floor of my studio. Let me explain.

Flowers come from growers and wholesalers in bunches containing 5 or 10 stems.
This applies to me as well as supermarkets selling flowers.

Supermarkets strip these bunches down and repack them after removing 1/3 of the stems.
So a 10-stem bunch (like roses), now contains only 7 stems and a 5-stem bunch now contains only 3 stems. The removed stems are then repacked to make new bunches of 7 and 3.
You still gets charged for a full bunch of flowers and you have to take whole bunches, irrespective of what they may contain.

I receive the same bunches of flowers and they then go through a process called processing. Part of this processing step is to remove all damaged, broken, bruised or dead flowers from the bunches. Even the best cared for bunches of flowers will have broken heads, malformed flowers and wilted flowers that sit on broken stems.

These rejected flowers end up on my studio floor as green waste. Only premium flowers make it through the processing phase, meaning you don't pay for any flowers that are not perfectly fresh or damaged.

Compare that to the "cheap" bunch you bought at your supermarket where you take it as they come, bruised, broken, rotten or wilted. Many of us experienced the disappointment of opening up a bunch of flowers from the supermarket to find only one or two stems are perfect and usable.

Get your investigator hat on and go and check my statements above by inspecting supermarket flowers - count the stems and look at the number of damaged flowers in each bunch. You will be shocked.