Amaryllis Demand Drives Expansion Project at Bloomaker

Posted by Brian Sparks|September 16, 2020

Waynesboro, VA-based Bloomaker is anticipating its largest holiday season in company history. Starting this month, the operations plans to produce and ship nearly 1.5 million amaryllis bulbs to major retail customers across the U.S. and Canada from its production facility.

Bloomaker has seen a significant increase in amaryllis sales over the past five years, leading to a need to expand their onsite production capabilities.

“The decision to bring many of our production techniques for both amaryllis and tulips in house was driven by a desire to be able to offer unique designs, while maintaining the highest quality across our entire product range,” says Paul Gabb, General Manager. “However, we also knew that making that decision would mean that combined with the increase in demand we’ve seen year on year, we’d reached our maximum capacity in our existing facility, and that an expansion would therefore be needed in order to allow us to continue to grow at our current rates.”

As a result, the company just started construction of an additional 22,000 square-foot warehouse at its Virginia site to be completed this year, and is planning on another 40,000 square-foot expansion at the same site in the near future. Plans include inventory upgrades and new designs, fully automated robotic production systems to reduce heavy and repetitive processes, and a design team working with high-tech printing systems to keep innovation and decorative processes in-house. New warehousing will lead to cross docking capabilities to facilitate floral fulfilment with existing and new partners. Bloomaker is optimistic that these warehouse expansion projects will help it to reach its goal of increasing production by 50% over the next five years.

Learn more about the company here.