Valentine's Day at Polish supermarkets

Valentine's Day is one of the most important flower celebrations for the Polish flower market, after Mother's Day and Women's Day. Increasingly more people buy their flowers at supermarkets as they have a large assortment and usually have the same prices as in usual weeks. Tulips and roses are the main products on the shelves. However, this year, sourcing roses has been more of a challenge", explains Bohdan Tustanivskyi of Profiflora, who visited several supermarkets on Valentine's Day.

Supermarkets prepare orders with suppliers months before, and often suppliers have obligations to supply large volumes of flowers at standard prices.

The majority of the tulips are produced in Poland and imported from the Netherlands. "When looking at the tulip production in Poland, it is not affected by the electricity crisis because there is no need to lightning the tulips during production."

However, for the Polish rose growers, it's a different story. "Due to the energy crisis, some of them stopped the production, and some of them cut 50% of production. Therefore, many of the retail roses are have been sourced from Africa and a very short volume of an exclusive segment of the from Ecuador and Columbia."

So, the supply is translated into the prices. "There is not such a big difference compared to last year; a bunch of 7 stems of tulips went for 8,99 zl (1,91 euro), and roses were a little bit more expensive, about 10 to 15%.

Besides tulips and roses, also, daffodils, carnations, Irises, alstroemeria, and some types of bouquets were on the shelves.

According to Tustanivskyi, more and more people buying flowers at Polish supermarkets: "the prices are a bit lower, large choice and sometimes you can catch good action buying more. On top of that, supermarkets usually have the same prices as usual weeks."

Below is an impression of the flower shelves at different supermarkets in Poland.

Dino