Businesses hit hard by gas prices; costs trickling down to consumers
Mar 11, 2022, 6:27 PM | Updated: Jun 19, 2022, 9:28 pm
PROVO, Utah — Skyrocketing gas prices are causing a huge economic impact for Utah’s largest wholesale florist company, which is based in Provo.
The company, which does not do retail to consumers, delivers several semi-truck loads of flowers a week to flower shops all across Utah and into Idaho and Wyoming. They have a fleet of 25 trucks, which are using anywhere from 5,000 to 6,000 gallons of gas a month.
With gas prices going up by $1 in some places, that’s a huge hit on the business.
“$5,000 to $6,000 a month. I mean, yeah, adds up quick,” said general manager Conrad Mickelsen, adding that that’s already on top of all the other inflation rates they’ve been dealing with. “We’ve seen some of our products go up 20% to 30%, sometimes even 50% to 60%, just in the last couple of years.”
Every week, the company gets several semi-loads of flowers from Miami and California.
On Friday, Mickelsen said they got an email from one of the delivery companies saying they are increasing their rates by 9% because of gas rates.
That will only trickle down to the flower shops like Bloomique in Provo. Amy Martin, the owner, says they just announced on Friday that they will be raising their rates by 20% to those they deliver flowers to because of the gas price increase.
“Today we increased all of our delivery fees to accommodate the change,” Martin told KSL TV. “So far this month compared to last month, it’s about that much [of an increase] for us.”
