Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
Bringing together local businesses and neighbor of the Tri-Cities region. Good Neighbor Podcast hosted by Skip Mauney helps residents discover and connect with your local business owners in and around The Tri-Cities.
Is your business serving the residents of Tri-Cities? Then, we need to talk! Visit gnpTri-Cities.com to schedule your free interview.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Tri-Cities
EP# 112: Reimagining the Floral Industry: Danielle Smith’s Journey with the Bristol Bloom Collective
What makes Danielle Smith with Bristol Bloom Collective a good neighbor?
Join us on the Good Neighbor Podcast as we introduce you to Danielle Smith, the visionary behind the Bristol Bloom Collective, who is revolutionizing the local floral industry. Discover how Danielle transitioned from wedding photography to establishing a local wholesale flower market that exclusively champions East Tennessee's vibrant agricultural scene. Forget the norm of importing blooms from afar; Danielle's collective empowers local farmers by providing a platform to sell their flowers at a wholesale level—dispelling myths that local flower farmers threaten florists. With her unique perspective, Danielle shares how her love for flowers and a keen eye for local potential turned an unused studio space into a flourishing hub for florists and farmers.
In our conversation, Danielle sheds light on the flourishing flower collective movement that is transforming communities across the U.S. She uncovers the common misconception that flower farmers could harm local florists and explains how the Bristol Bloom Collective allows both parties to prosper. By offering local farmers an alternative to the farmers market circuit, Danielle's initiative supports a harmonious coexistence between florists and farmers, meeting community needs more effectively. Tune in to hear how the Bristol Bloom Collective is nurturing local business and bringing beauty to the community with every bouquet.
To learn more about Bristol Bloom Collective go to:
https://www.facebook.com/bristolbloom.collective/
Bristol Bloom Collective
(865) 386-0080
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Skip Monty.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast. We've got a really interesting guest who owns an interesting business, very interesting business that I am very excited to learn more about, and I'm sure you will be too, because today I have the pleasure of introducing your good neighbor, ms Danielle Smith, who is the owner-operator of Bristol Bloom Collective. Danielle, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 2:Well, we're thrilled to have you, like I said, an interesting name Bristol Bloom Collective. I'm really interested to learn all about you and your company, so, if you don't mind, please tell our listeners a little bit about what you do.
Speaker 3:Absolutely so. The Bristol Bloom Collective started this year in our area. It is a local wholesale flower market, which means we are creating a local wholesale for flowers, but it's only locally sourced. So typically when you see a traditional flower wholesaler, they are sourcing flowers from South America, Mexico, Southern California, shipping them all in. But in East Tennessee we have such a great agricultural area and we have so many rich farms and our flower farmers don't have an outlet to grow on a whole scale level, so we've created a collective that allows us to do that.
Speaker 2:Wow, very cool. You know this show's all about locally owned businesses and nonprofits, so you're perfect. So, danielle, how did you get into this business?
Speaker 3:Um so, uh, danielle, how did you get into this business? Well, so really, I am actually a photographer. That is my full-time job. I do wedding photography and have for a very long time, and I have a love of flowers, um, and where I am a photographer, I deal a lot with florists. I work with a ton of florists. I really appreciate flowers and we also have a small farm and we don't grow flowers, but I know a lot with florists. I work with a ton of florists, I really appreciate flowers and we also have a small farm and we don't grow flowers, but I know a lot of farmers.
Speaker 3:So I was in this really unique position where I have a photography studio with a completely open basement area that has a lot in the back for parking and it was completely not used. So I chatted with some of my florist friends and we came up with this great idea for a flower collective, which the flower collective movement is not something we have created. There are flower collectives all around the U? S. We are just opening one in Bristol, but we there are. There are at least 40 or 50 in the US and we just don't have one in our area. I think the closest one to us is Richmond, and then there's one in like near Asheville, but not quite so our area is in need of one.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, fitting the need there, fit in the need there. So in the flower collective industry, what are some myths or misconceptions?
Speaker 3:or about the flower business in general. So the Bristol Bloom Collective has had, you know, obviously growing. We are disrupting the flow for florists, for flower markets, for florists for flower markets, for farmers markets. Basically, one of the biggest misconceptions is that local flower farmers are going to hurt florists. For some reason there is this myth that because flower farmers are trying to grow on a wholesale level, that they will hurt the local floral business. And that is not true at all.
Speaker 3:A lot of the farmers that we have are currently trying. They're trying to do it all. They're a flower farmer but they don't have an outlet to sell. So they're at farmer's markets and they're making bouquets, which they don't really want to do, but they don't have a way to sell their flowers any other way. So they are growing, creating, selling and, at this point, kind of disrupting florists. Because if someone can go to a farmer's market and buy a bouquet for X amount of dollars, why would they go to a traditional floral shop? They can just go to the farmer's market every Saturday and grab a really beautiful bouquet. But our flower farmers, they don't want, they don't want to go to farmer's markets, they don't want to commit Wednesday nights, thursday nights, saturday mornings, weekends. They just want to grow Literally, quite literally. They want to grow flowers, grow their farm and not have to worry about doing the rest. So we're trying to connect florists and flower farmers in a more pleasant way.
Speaker 2:So how does that work? What does the collective I mean? You connect farmers with florists or with customers, or how does that?
Speaker 3:So as a wholesale, we aren't really appealing to the general public as much. We will most likely have an open market where the general public can come at certain hours, but we are trying to completely go wholesale. So a wholesale market it's florists. They make orders online. We deliver the flowers straight to them just like they would do with their traditional floral wholesale market. The only exception is that we are all locally grown, which allows us to grow blooms that you know dahlias. You can't get dahlias shipped in. They don't transport well. Sweet peas, same thing. Their shelf life is just not great, but we can grow them locally so if we can. Ideally, we will never replace a traditional wholesale market. Ideally, we will never replace a traditional wholesale market. We're not going to have hundreds of blue roses in December because it's East Tennessee, but we'll have specialty blooms, beautiful locally grown blooms, and it will support, like the local area rather than supporting outside of the US.
Speaker 2:Awesome, that is totally awesome. Appreciate what you're doing actually. So let's switch gears for just a second. Could you describe a hardship or a life challenge that you've encountered and overcame and how that made you stronger? Does anything come to mind?
Speaker 3:no-transcript and it's such a being, a business owner can feel like such a male dominated thing walking in and being like, no, this is my business and I run this. I don't have someone here helping me. Well, I mean, my husband is here. He is a very strong supportive partner of all this, but to say that he knows anything about flowers, he does not, um, but still I I feel like there are still struggles for female business owners and with flower farms, a lot of the people running those are women. You've got flower farmers and, yes, you do have the occasional male flower farmer, but for the most part it's we're all women and we're all growing and trying to make this happen for our families.
Speaker 2:Wow Well, congratulations. It sounds like you're doing an amazing job.
Speaker 3:We're working on it.
Speaker 2:It's a big goal, working on it, working on it. Well, if you could think of one thing that you would like our listeners to remember about the Bristol Bloom Collective, what would that be?
Speaker 3:I would really love for them to know that we are trying to make our Bristol a better like a brighter, prettier place. We want to make sure that we're bringing in people and we are helping sustain our community in the best way possible, and we are spreading flowers. We would love for people to come out and support the Bristol Bloom Collective, support our small local farms and really just even if they even if you don't have a need for flowers, tell a friend If you have someone planning an event and they want to grab some flowers. We would love to be able to support you and get you everything that you need.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. So for those that want to learn more about how they can do that, where can they go?
Speaker 3:So the Bristle Bloom Collective. We have an Instagram page and a Facebook page, currently working on the website as it's our inaugural year, and then we post announcements on our Facebook page. If the if flower farmers are interested in hearing more about our collective and how to be a part of it, we have a specific Facebook group just for our flower farmer like flower farming community, where we share lots of stuff about flowers. We talk about all the things happening in our area, so we are trying to make ourselves as available as possible.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. You'll have to let us know when you get your website done. Awesome, awesome. You'll have to let us know when you get your website done.
Speaker 3:Yes, absolutely we are. It is an off season. It is finally getting cold enough for us to take a break and put down all of our farming stuff, so I will be getting that website together.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Well, danielle, you don't know how much I appreciate you being on the show. Great interview. We wish you and hope you have a restful off season, but in the future we wish you and your husband and your company all the best moving forward absolutely. Thank you so much for having me absolutely, and I hope maybe we can get you back on the show. Once you've got a gangbuster website we'll get you back on the show alright. Thank you so much, Danielle.
Speaker 3:Of course.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor Podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnptry-citiescom. That's gnptry-citiescom, or call 423-719-5873.