A Guide To Displaying Floral Arrangements with Walk-in Coolers
Designing an inviting flower display requires you to create an atmosphere that showcases the natural beauty of the flowers, and your skill in creating bouquets. Well organized bouquet displays help maintain fresh, fragrant, and colorful flowers to delight customers.
One great way to achieve an aesthetically pleasing shop that encourages customers to buy flowers is to display arrangements in walk-in coolers. This guide will provide essential tips on maintaining the best environment for your freshly cut stems, resulting in long lasting flower shape, texture, color, and scent.
Consider a Walk-in Floral Cooler Instead of a Refrigerator
You might wonder which is better for your flower shop: a walk-in cooler or a refrigerator. Generally, walk-in floral coolers are a perfect solution because they maintain a high humidity level and mild ventilation to keep flowers perky and fresh. Ordinary refrigerators operate at temperatures and humidity levels that can ruin flowers. Additionally, refrigerators have rapid airflow, which can easily hasten the drying out of your flowers and lead to inventory waste.
A walk-in floral cooler is made with subtle qualities that are ideal for keeping flowers fresh. The high humidity saves the flowers’ fragile petals and foliage. Unlike a conventional refrigerator, floral coolers keep a high humidity level even when the temperature is low. High moisture content in floral coolers protects and preserves various flower sections, helping you extend the shelf life of your product.
Also, many walk-in coolers have LED lighting options. You can customize your cooler’s light to be on a motion sensor, which could help save on energy costs and still provide clear visibility of your bouquets to customers.
Other benefits of a walk-in cooler include adjustable shelving heights. This way you can display all types and sizes of bouquets without being limited to one shelf height option. Also, many walk-in coolers feature a 90 degree hold-open feature so customers can peruse flower arrangements without having to hold the door. Most doors are also magnetic to ensure a quick close and to help maintain consistent temperatures. As we’ll explore next, temperature consistency is a crucial part of preserving flowers.
The Right Temperature for Your Fresh Flower Stock
Flowers require a temperature of about 34 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit to be at their best state right after harvest. Therefore, your cooler must be able to maintain that temperature to keep your flower inventory fresh. Walk-in floral coolers utilize high humidity, and their ideal temperature hovers around 38 degrees Fahrenheit, enabling your flower stock to last longer.
Regardless of the cooler you choose, make sure you have a humidity and temperature regulator to ensure that your floral cooler is effectively operating. If you decide to obtain flowers from their dehydrating mixture and place them in a preservative emulsion, ensure you keep the temperature at 34 degrees. The idea is to provide a suitable and reliable storage condition to prevent flowers from losing their blossoms.
Conduct Regular Cleaning and Maintenance
A floral walk-in cooler is just like any other electrical appliance that requires regular cleaning and maintenance to ensure that it operates at its best. Moreover, a clean and well-kept walk-in floral cooler is vital for keeping flowers fresh and fragrant. Plus, it will make your outside glass displays look clear, lively, and attractive.
Neglecting periodic cleaning and upkeep of your floral cooler and working tools may lead to bacteria growth that can negatively impact the lifespan and beauty of cut flowers. Therefore, make sure to keep your workplace clean.
Keep your tools and flower containers clean as well, particularly those that come into contact with the flower stems. Wash all your work tools, including knives, shears, and scissors in warm water with liquid detergent or a bleach and water solution. By doing this, you can be certain that your equipment is clear of any bacteria that could harm the flowers.
Fill Your Vases with Cool Water
As a flower retailer, you are surely well versed in best practices with watering your arrangements. However, the importance of maintaining clean cool water in your vases is worth repeating. Even when preserved in a high-humidity walk-in cooler, frequent watering will prevent them from prematurely dehydrating. Once you have your cut flowers, first fill the vase with cool water, then put in loose flowers. If bouquets are delivered in advance, you can keep them in their original packaging to minimize stressing the stems or petals.
Plastic vases are an excellent option to use because they are safer for the plant matter than metallic vases. This is important because having the right flower vases will prevent the need to alter the water’s pH balance.
Keep your flower inventory fresh by regularly replacing water. Avoiding keeping your cut flowers in the same water for an extended period will not only keep flowers fresh, but also prevent the growth of bacteria that can damage them. If left in the same water for an extended time, flowers, as well as water used, may turn sticky and discolored.
Exercise Caution When Handling and Organizing Flowers
Flowers are delicate; thus, extra care must be taken to ensure they don’t experience bruising or breakage along the petals and stems. The lifespan prior to selling the bouquet is also crucial. For most species of flowers, we recommend you do not keep flowers on the shelf for longer than five days after the day you purchased them.
However, non-hydrated flowers like carnations, often purchased in a box, can last more than five days before being processed. Flowers should never be kept in a cooler alongside fruits and vegetables because they’ll deteriorate quickly. Fruit such as bananas and tomatoes produces a high level of ethylene, a gas responsible for repining and aging cut flowers. This gas will influence ethylene production, thereby leading to more rapid aging of the flowers.
Get Your Walk-In Display Cooler
At Storflex, we offer superior walk-in floral coolers for flower shops and retail spaces. Our walk-in display coolers are reasonably priced and designed according to your requirements. Storflex walk-in coolers are a great solution for convenience stores, restaurants, and supermarkets. In addition, we provide a walk-in cooler that is quick and easy to assemble. Contact us to learn more or to get a product catalog.