RSSArena Flowers Bouquet Eco Product Review
Written by Adam
Arena Flowers are the first florists in the UK to offer ethically sourced Fair Flowers Fair Plants (FFP) products. A bit about FFP was written by Arena Flowers’ marketing analyst, Adarsh Rangaswamy, on Green Girls Global. He says:
“Fair Flowers Fair Plants (FFP) is a European initiative which addresses historic shortcomings by creating a level playing field for all producers by setting uniform, global standards. One of the unique features of FFP is its emphasis on auditing the entire supply chain to regulate the use of pesticides, land, energy and the working environment. Furthermore, it also offers flexibility to florists to source their produce either from flower auctions or directly, through FFP compliant growers. This latter approach, favoured by ArenaFlowers.com where possible, guarantees fresher floral produce, reduced wastage and a happier customer (key!). In the longer term, FFP’s aim is to unify all existing standards to make it simple for growers, traders and consumers. We’re proud to say that we are the first UK florist to sell FFP-accredited products and have now launched an ethical category featuring all our whiter than white products.”
While you can get Fair Trade Flowers too, FFP flowers are also ethical and as I normally only buy British blooms, I thought I’d give Arena Flowers a go and Adarsh was happy to oblige. Thankfully he included chocolates and wine as opposed to a balloon and cuddly toy but I was delighted with the results. I was sent the Bright and Cheery bouquet which was a visual delight.
Not only did it look great, but the smell of the roses is lovely and the lilies will open in a couple of days – I can’t wait. In the UK flowers are seen as more of a luxury item than in other countries, but receiving a bunch like this for the home reminded me why I get them. They brighten up the room, delight the girlfriend and coming with flower food, they’ll last a while. If you’re going to buy flowers anyway, why not make sure they’re ethical? It’s estimated that more than 18 million Fair Trade stems were sold in the UK in 2005 so there’s certainly a market for FFP-accredited flowers.
Arena Flowers has its own blog, a sister site in the Netherlands and you can send internationally too.
The Bright and Cheery selection costs £34.99 with the vase, wine and chocolates extra, but no delivery charge.
Hey, this is a great find, Adam!
Do you know if any florists offer this service in other parts of the world or is the UK leading the way?
Aaron Dalton, 1GreenProduct.com
ps – Not to be snarky, but shouldn’t Fair Flowers, Fair Plants be FFFP? I think you’re missing an “F”…
I used these guys for the first time this week and the flowers they sent were fantastic. Not to mention I’m overseas right now so I ordered at 4:30am GMT and they were on the desk by 12 noon the same day at no extra cost.
Great service and great attitude!
Hey Aaron, I’m not sure if other parts of the world do this to be honest, I know they partner with international sites – I’ve done an interview with Will Wynn (great name) who founder the company. Also it’s actually just FFP – as Adarsh got the name wrong!
Adam, many thanks for the review.
Aaron and Nick, thanks for the comments and feedback. It always keeps us motivated to offer better services to our customers.
Aaron, as you point out, we’ve had plenty of customers querying why Fair Flowers Fair Plants is FFP and and not FFFP. This is something which we asked Regina Dinkla, the Project Manager for the FFP foundation when she did an interview for us on our blog here: http://www.arenaflowers.com/blog/2008/04/21/fair-flowers-fair-plants-ffp-fairtrade-similarities-and-differences/
In her own words: “Everyone always asks that! Originally our name was supposed to be Fair Flowers & Plants (so FFP) but that was already registered. Then becoming Fair Flowers Fair Plants, the acronym was FFFP but that was a bit of a mouthful so we cut one of the ‘Fairs’ from the acronym.”
Nick, glad that you liked our International Flower Delivery services. We also offer FFP accredited Flowers and Plants delivery through our Dutch (http://www.arenabloemen.nl) and soon to be launched German (http://www.arenablumen.de) sites.
[...] Flowers sent us a lovely bunch that we wrote about in our Eco Reviews. We thought we’d find out a bit more about them so I spoke to managing director Will Wynne [...]
[...] in the US, there are more and more places to buy environmentally friendly flowers from. In the UK Arena Flowers is a good place to start. Givingplants.com video Enjoyed this post? Click on the Yahoo Buzz! [...]
Do you know any way to find out if there are other florists that take part in this exiting eco-project?
Anyway thanks for a great article!