If you order from us right now, you’ll notice that your box will not come with our signature linen wrapper. I wanted to take a minute to explain why. 

When we first founded the company, we had no money to hire a branding agency (we’ve still never used one for our core product experience). Instead, we were driven by some core values: 

First: We wanted people to feel like we’d thought of everything. We wanted the experience to be easy and convenient. 

Second: We didn’t want people to feel like they had to figure out how to arrange the flowers. Nor did we want flowers to be an afterthought (here’s looking at you chocolates and other gifts). Flowers, by every study, were superior to these alternatives as emotive gifts go. We were going to own our space. 

Third: We wanted our packaging to be sustainable and also purposeful. For us, this meant that if you had to throw it away, we wanted you to be able to feel good about the options: composting, recycling, etc. Even better, we wanted the item to be usable. 

It was this third principle that became the defining part of our conversation about how to wrap our flowers. Most other companies used paper or plastic. A few had built their brands around repurposed products. Neither of these felt right for us. We wanted the item to be something you could use with the flowers – and this led us to the idea of a linen wrapper that could serve as a table runner under your vase and then as cloth for the kitchen or a Furushiki wrapper, which is the Japanese reusable gift wrap.

The idea felt elegant, elevated, and useful. When we decided to pair the wrappers with velvet ribbon, we knew we’d achieved the earthy elegance we wanted to create. 

We set out to find the right way to produce this item. After a lot of conversations and dead-ends, we landed on a company in Ukraine. They used beautiful linens, and they gave us the option of being able to do limited-edition printed versions of our linens. They were amazing partners who always produced stunning quality and could deliver fast turnarounds. We were thrilled and honored to work with them.

Since the February Russian invasion of Ukraine, we have not been able to obtain new inventory.  And over the last few weeks, due to increased demand for our products, we have run out of our existing inventory completely. 

I have had multiple conversations with our team about how to resolve this. One option was to look for alternative suppliers. This of course would allow us to maintain the integrity of our product. It also would allow us to keep our branding consistent, which is valuable as a new company. However, the choice didn’t feel right. 

Instead, we’re taking a different approach.  For as long as we can, we have decided to wait for our supplier to return to business.  We’ll keep track of every order that doesn’t have a linen wrapper. When our supplier is able to return to business and we restock, we will notify those who didn’t receive a wrapper to see if they’d like one sent to them. In the meantime, we will use alternative means of wrapping. We will still provide the velvet ribbon. 

Waiting feels like our way of standing in support of a company that has supported us during our early and difficult months. We know how hard it is to build a business, and how quickly people can and will move on. To the degree we can, we don’t want this business to lose business that, in our minds, belongs to them.

We’ve also had issues with the scissors we used to include. This is due to more general supply chain factors and will most likely be replaced sooner. 

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at customer.support@floracracy.com. Know that the experience we deliver is of utmost importance to us. Equally so, though, is who we as people and a company become in the journey. I could not have imagined when I started the choices and challenges we’d face. I see now how building something changes you. If you are not conscious of this fact, you can be changed in ways that do not align with who you wanted to be. 

If you are conscious, if you take these difficult moments as spaces to ask big questions and grasp for the broader truths in yourself and the world around you, you can find in yourself than you thought you had. You can give that bigger self to the service of others. 

In our most humble and imperfect way, we strive to these goals here.