PACKED AT SOURCE: Tailored solutions to save you time and money
Packed at Source is not a new concept, in fact our director and founder Millie came to Kenya initially to set up a ‘PAS’ facility for the UK retail market.
What is new is the range of products and scope of the bouquets we can put together now. The initial Packed At Source lines were very classic: rose and spray carnations, rose and eucalyptus etc, generally all 40cm posies for entry tier prices point in retail – mainly supermarkets. Now we can put together much larger bouquets for higher prices points, and even gifting options.
What is Packed At Source?
Packed At Source is where we make the bouquet here for you on the farm, ‘at the source’. It can be fully sleeved, labelled, with flower food. We take the hassle of bouquet and posy making from you and send it shelf-ready. There are numerous benefits to this which are detailed a little more below:
Less handling: The flowers are picked, graded and then packed straight into their bouquets – this reduces the risk of damage from all the unpacking and repacking and therefore reduces knock-on waste caused by double handling.
Less cost: With increasing labour costs globally, reducing a step in the chain saves you time and cost. Our teams here on the farms are experts in their field at grading, bouquet making and packing. The lovely teams are needed here for post-harvest and packing either way, so why not let them pack the bouquets too so that you don’t need another whole team to make bouquets, or so your skilled hand-tie team can focus on the bigger bouquets and leave the little ones to us?
Less time: Instead of receiving a range of products which need unpacking and conditioning before being made into bouquets, and then repacked ready for shipping, all you need to do with a PAS bouquet is cut the bottom 2cm off and place it in the retail buckets to condition on their way to the stores. This can save you a whole day, if not four days, in the cold chain.
What we offer at The Flower Hub is a ‘build your own’ version of PAS. Whatever your requirement is, talk to us about creating the right bouquet for you.
Fully PAS is where your bouquet is sleeved, labelled – with price, barcode and display until date and ready to go, flower food and all. We have our own zebra printer to be able to get the product label you need with all the information you need.
Part-Packed At Source is the other extreme – this comes in two types – either a bouquet ready for you to add a few seasonal stems on arrival, then wrap and sell, or a much larger bouquet which we can split into (for example) three or five equal smaller bunch sizes for shipping. You then put the three bunches together back into the large bouquet for a quick hand-finished feel. This option is very popular for bouquets of 30 stems or more. The box pack crates leaving Kenya are maximised and the time and labour costs on the other side are minimised.
We also offer anything in between, whether it is a simple sleeved bunch that you add a label to, or a pre-made but unsleeved ‘fairtrade’ posy, in a variety of colourways ready to add a pop of vibrancy to your display, we are here to discuss what might suit you best. Something the retail customers like is a mixed colour bucket in their displays. This is the same bouquet but in a variety of colour options, or with a few different fillers. We can do either – and generally recommend having different colours for the same bouquets.
Kenya is renowned for Roses, but actually it’s the development of summer flowers that is just as amazing. Over the years the breeders and growers have worked closely together to develop varieties suitable for cutting and bouquets. We work with over 50 farms, so whatever you need we will be able to find it.
For more information, please contact our team at info@theflowerhub.co.ke.
