The next eight weeks will be pivotal for greenhouse growers of Chilliwack.
Rainbow Greenhouses owner Stan Vander Waal said they are determined to remain optimistic heading into what is normally the “ultimate peak” time in April and May for the sale of flowering plants and bedding plants.
“We do 70 per cent of our business over the next several weeks from now to about the first week of June,” Vander Waal tells The Progress.
Spring sales can make or break a greenhouse business. But COVID-19 has changed everything.
“One of things we say about retail is, ‘The more traffic, the more flowers they buy.’ But of course the retailers now have to limit store traffic and employ physical distancing, so it all poses big challenges to get those big numbers through the stores.”
They thought they might be headed for “outright disaster” three weeks ago. A lot of company time was spent initially working on safety protocols, and determining how to keep employees safe as they prepared for the peak season.
Easter sales were very low, and it’s been an incredibly difficult five weeks overall.
“Our easter sales were just under 60 per cent,” Vander Waal said, adding those sluggish results were fairly consistent across the sector.
However with so many people staying home to follow provincial health officer recommendations, the demand for garden products has started to spike dramatically.
“People are looking to be happy at home, and many are undertaking yard cleanups and yard work. That has translated into many customers looking for plants and flowers.”
A “huge market demand” is starting to build at big box outlets like Costco, Home Depot and Walmart at the moment. They’ve nailed down their distancing processes in the stores, and are seeing very strong interest in garden products.
“It’s a significant shift having taken place in the retailers’ minds,” Vander Waal said about the increased orders.
It’s also a positive outcome for greenhouses, after “dismal” results for several weeks.
“People are spending lots of time in their yards. It’s the same way we’ve also been seeing big lineups at the dump,” he underlined. “People’s backyards will probably be the best looking they’ve been in years.”
Bedding plants and gardening is a relatively low-cost activity for people who are sheltering at home, so it makes sense.
The Chilliwack grower said he now expects to be able to get “a reasonable amount of product” out the door in the peak season leading up to Mother’s Day.
Knowing it was going to be a tough year, Rainbow Greenhouses had already made reductions in total plantings, which might mean shortages of materials and product down the road.
But at least there’s been no outbreak of the virus among employees.
“We are very fortunate that all of our staff are healthy, and we hope that continues,” Vander Waal said.
With a staff of 120 employees at Rainbow Greenhouses, some went into self-isolation to protect loved ones. Another 60 temporary foreign workers arrived in Chilliwack to work in the greenhouses with strict sanitation and distancing protocols in place, as well as education for workers about intensive hand-washing.
The past week or so has been “much more encouraging,” Vander Waal said, as sales were strong in tandem with the arrival of some beautiful weather.
In the end, Rainbow might see 75 to 80 per cent of what they planned to sell in 2020. But being down by 20 per cent would be a “really big number.”
“That said, it’s not going to be a regular year, and we know that,” Vander Waal said. “It’s all so hard to predict. We are doing all that we can do.”
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