A 6am morning
at the wholesale flower market
What a buying trip actually looks like: grading stems in cold rooms, reading box labels, which stallholders hold back the good buckets, and the coffee that makes the alarm survivable.
5:58am. The ranunculus are already going.
The route
Van leaves the studio at 5:45. First pass is a lap without buying: see what came in, what is short, what the day price looks like. Second pass is the actual buying, done fast because the good stuff is gone by 7:30. We teach students the lap discipline because buying on first sight is how you end up with a coolroom of almost-right.
Reading a bunch in ten seconds
Squeeze the base of the stem: firm means fresh, spongy means yesterday. Check the leaf edges for browning. Look at the cut end: green and wet is good, dry and grey is a week old. Count the heads per bunch because the label lies by optimism.
Box labels
The sticker tells you origin, grade and pack date. Grade is stem length and head size, and a 70cm rose is not automatically better than a 50cm one for hand-tied work. Most beginners overbuy grade and underbuy freshness, which is backwards.
Getting it home alive
The cold chain does not end at the market. Boxes go in the van in stack order, hydrating buckets are waiting at the studio, and everything is recut within the hour. The drive home is where half of market-day mortality happens in summer. We cover the full delivery and transport side in the bootcamp's logistics evening.
The seasonal guide tells you what to look for on the crates. Students do this trip live in week five of the course.
Dan Kowalski
Buying & business mentorDan has bought at this market every week for five years. The coffee vendor knows his order.
Come to the market with us
The 6am trip is part of the course, not a bonus you pay extra for.