3. Floral Buckets - summary¶

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3.1. Market Analysis - overview¶

In progress

3.1.1. Local competition¶

There are numerous horticulturalists, florists, and landscapers offering horticultural products similar to the naive consumer. Key points to be detailed

Big box stores are just starting to move into the wildflower market
No other local source for actual wild flowers
Number of landscapers, florists, horticulturalists.

3.2. Revenue Streams¶

The primary revenue stream is projected to originate from monthly subscriptions for wildflowers grown from local seeds. Secondary revenue streams that build off of the knowledge and the production process are also important to consider and may end up being larger than the wildflower buckets, especially at the beginning.

Flower bucket subscription
Biotope subscription
Flower bucket / biotope rental for events
Guided tours to unique biotopes for seed collection for regional ecotourism (via VHS?)
Sale of seeds / “seed bombs”
Sale of individual plants as well as flower bucket subscriptions at city markets
Sale of cut flowers
Contracts with municipal and regional authorities
Subsidies

3.2.1. Flower bucket subscription¶

The core of the value proposition is the following:

Buckets of wildflowers grown from locally collected seed that look great year round while protecting the unique flora and fauna of the region. Grown in a certified organic horticultural center with seeds collected sustainably, and managed to provide resources and habitat for native insects.

A back of the envelope calculation yields the following:

3.2.2. Biotope subscription¶

Production of larger, custom creations based on unique and threatened local biotopes.

3.2.3. Guided tours¶

Offer guided tours of where seeds are collected. A “balade botanique” costs 40 CHF from the VHS Biel-Lyss

3.2.4. Sale of seeds¶

Wildflower seed mixes could be sold as well. There are no other seed mixes originating from wild-type flowers available.

Past equipe volo experience
number of wild branded seed mixes available from the chains stores.

3.2.5. Sale of individual plants¶

The sale of invididual plants currently occurs only at Equipe Volo essentially through an existing network with little effort made to find additional customers.

The most effective way to increase the sale of plant stock is to participate in the sale of individual plants at markets. This would also be a chance to sell bucket subscriptions.

3.2.6. Sale of cut flowers.¶

A certain amount of cut flowers will be generated through the maintenance and production process, as well as by undelivered inventory. Could these be sold at markets etc as well ?

3.2.7. Contracts with municipal and regional authorities¶

There is a growing awareness within local, regional and national governments of the importance of using wild flowers, and even more so using wild-type seeds. A main constraint they face is the lack of wild-type plants available for renaturalization projects, city beautification projects, and the rest.

Education and engagement with these authorities could yield significant revenu streams.

As discussed with the M. from the city, and demonstrated by Uni Zurich contract.

3.2.8. Subsidies¶

Due to the high environmental and scientific contributions that can be made, there is a strong possibility for government subsidies to pay for some of the diffuse benefits that are generated by the project but not captured sufficiently in the revenu stream.

3.2.9. Event rentals¶

Rent out beautiful natural wildflower displays for weddings and other events.

3.3. IT system¶

In order to operate and scale effectively a strong IT system will be needed for the following:

Manage inventory
Manage plant data
Use and the present the data
Electronic delivery of all things.

3.3.1. Inventory management¶

Both wildflower buckets and biotopes will need to be swapped and/or maintained throughout the year, thus it is critical to have a strong system of information management. As it takes time to produce the flowers in a way that respects the environment, information management is key to not exceed inventory capacity nor end up purchasing flowers to maintain contractual obligations. . Maintaining an electronic database will be a critical part of managing fixed and variable costs.

The expected state of the different buckets and biotopes needs to be tracked in order for the to be maintained and swapped
Construct and optimize a city level maintenance schedule for the buckets and biotopes.
Digitize information regarding inventory management from seedling to sale of flower bucket.

3.3.2. Data management¶

The data produced during the production process should be effectively captured, stored and put to use. Further, the trips out to the field to collect seeds can double as data collection opportunities.

Plant surveys of the areas where seeds are being collected should be conducted and stored using the infoflora app, a supremely useful and useable tool for keeping track of plant surveys in Switzerland. Survey data is easily exportable for other uses while being immediately registered for the national database.
Data should be kept on the successes and failures of growing wild-type wildflowers commercially as there is relatively little information on effective propoagation of many of these species. TBD
Database to register data for other scientific work (genetic work)

3.3.3. Use and presentation of data¶

For data to have value it must be both useable and be put to use. In order for this to happen, it must be maintained, stored and updated, as well as have a human available to collaborate with researchers and others interested in the topic. In addition, prioritization of taking plant data and promoting species

Integration with other local and regional databases to provide the context of where the flora products fit into the flora of the built environment (e.g. cadastre des arbres de bienne, info flora observations, 2020, 2021 survey data)
Basic analytics should be automatically generated for funding, management, communication and reporting
Use of industry standard coding platforms to facilitate integration with emerging knowledge and nature-based solutions econmy

3.4. Scientific integration¶

In order for the next generation of sustainable businesses oriented firmly in a nature based solutions economy to succeed, it must be embedded on the frontier of relevant scientific developments.

Genetic analysis becomes more accessible just as the importance of preserving genetic diversity is being recognized a serious topic.
Strong connection to (sub)urban plant surveys and local biogeographic knowledge
Development of a “living seedbank”

3.4.1. Genetic analysis¶

Genetic analysis becomes more accessible just as the importance of preserving genetic diversity is being recognized as a serious topic.

Possibility for environmental DNA analysis (50 - 100 CHF per sample for edna analysis?) on flower heads
Possibility to contribute to DNA barcoding of plant species
Comparison to commcercial “wildflower” seed mixes

3.4.2. Local biogeography¶

The

love plants