Last Monday evening we had the pleasure of visiting Delaware Valley Wholesale Group in Sewell New Jersey. Delaware Valley hosted us along with a group of other florists that were in town for the American Society of Florists Growth Solution being held in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Delaware Valley graciously provided food and drinks to the group and attendees had the opportunity to tour the facility in groups.

Jackie and I were pleasantly surprised when owner Robert Wilkins the Chief Strategy Officer gave us a personal tour of their modern, 100,000+ square foot Corporate Headquarters.  We got to see how our flowers that are ordered at 5:30 the night before make it into our store in Boston from Southern New Jersey by 7:30 in the morning the next day so we can provide flower delivery to Boston that same morning.

The most interesting part of the tour was seeing their conveyer belt system that follows flower orders from being pulled off the computer to being placed on there delivery vehicles. The conveyor belt carries buckets of water though their large floral coolers where Delaware staff places customers orders into the buckets. The buckets then exit the cooler to a packing area. After the buckets are packed they are automatically routed to one of four delivery zones where they are placed on refrigerated trucks for delivery.