New Zealand Holiday Job #8: Flower Packing

Cherry picking ended early for me at the turn of the new year. A freak downpour on New Year’s Day in Otago left roads flooded, bridges damaged, and orchards gone in hours.

It’s like – Happy New Year, fireworks, and boom, we were dismissed.

We had our post-cherry picking plans set out. After the season ended sometime in February, we were supposed to head to the North Island. My partner was to do some snowboarding stuff in Auckland. Edit: He didn’t do that as Auckland went into another lockdown. We travelled in the Northland instead.

We did not expect nor intend to head north that soon.

And so, when 2021 began with an unexpected turn of events, we packed our bags, left Clyde and hoped for the best in Christchurch.

I did this job in Feb 2021. Post may be updated periodically.

Application

A couple of friends in Christchurch helped us in our job-searching process by providing us with possible places to go: (1) biscuit packing in Jon-Jon bakery, (2) nursing plants in Zealandia, and (3) tomato picking in hothouses. EDIT: We did pick tomatoes in the greenhouse at the end of the year as I prepared to head home.

But those options came to nothing – they were not looking for people.

But we were on a lucky streak, post the New Year rains.

EDIT: As you will see from the following events and the storyline of my life in NZ, we were really lucky. We found a job in CHC and bolted out of Auckland and had a horrible Helpx experience just before the lockdown.

I happened to come across a job listing by a flower company on the backpacker’s board, which resembled how we found work as calf rearers in Ashburton last August. 

The application, interview and contract signing were done within the same day, and we could officially dismiss unemployment the very next morning. 

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What We Did

My partner and I did different chores.

As a guy, he spent most of his time making courier boxes for the flowers, preparing the trolleys for merch days, or repacking the company’s flower purchases from auctions or growers. Mainly work requiring physical labour.

For me, as with 90% of the staff in the packhouse who are ladies, I pack flowers for sale. Sometimes, I would make simple bouquets from gerberas. Other times, I may do courier orders in the chiller room.

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My Work in Detail

My routine began with checking the customers’ orders – how many of each different flowers to pack and prepare for the day. It could be 100 oriental lilies at $12.99, 50 of the same flowers at $10.99, 30 spray chrysanthemums at $12.99 and 10 alstroemerias at $9.99 each.

The list on the board grew with the day as orders flowed in.

Noobies like me do simple flower packing – transferring the growers’ flowers into nicer-looking plastic sleeves with their respective price tags.

Those with experience arrange bigger bouquets that could come with five different varieties of flowers and cost at least $30 each.

Before packing the flowers, we would have to fill several buckets with bleached water. The repacked flowers were fitted into the buckets and wheeled into a chiller room.

At the end of the day, I do an inventory check in the chiller room, so we’ll know how many more of each flower we have to pack the next day.

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Merch Days

Merch days, or merchandise days, occur every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. On those days, the company replaces the old flowers with fresh flowers in selected supermarkets or dairy shops across Christchurch.

The packhouse gets busy a day before merch.

ll of us ladies had to pack flowers for the supermarkets, on top of the daily courier or dispatch orders. So more work on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. The packhouse rests on Saturday.

My partner would pick the price-tagged flowers from the chiller room and prepare them for delivery. He would wrap the heavy trolleys, organise them into the chiller truck like Tetris, and drive the large truck within the compound to plug it into a power source and start the chiller. No mean feat!

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Auction Days

Auction days are when the company buys flowers or leafy accessories from growers or other wholesalers. It usually happens on a Monday, and we prepare those purchases on the same evening.

On those evenings, everyone in the office – from the sales to the marketing and even the boss – had to join in. We trimmed the stalks, sorted the flowers or leaves, packed them into buckets, and rolled them into the chiller room, Tetris-style. Someone has to clean the aftermath of packing, flatten the delivery boxes for recycling, and take stock too.

If anything, I learnt that oriental lilies are a huge favourite and a must in supermarkets. A bloom of lily could perfume the whole room.

We get troughs containing over 400 bunches of lilies delivered every week. The lilies are a special case, unrestricted by the auction. I suppose the company has arrangements with this particular grower for a secure supply. For me, I had to power through those 400 lilies when they arrived – trim, pack, price and slot them into the chiller room.

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Names of Flowers

Had it not been for this job, I wouldn’t have figured out the names of the flowers and would have probably called the gerbera a cousin of the chrysanthemum. Who knew that roses exist in so many colours?

Learning the names of those flowers took time. Eventually, we learnt to differentiate alstroemerias from snapdragons and mini gerberas from the big ones.

As with the fruits and vegetables in the supermarkets of New Zealand, different seasons give you different flowers. My month-long short stint exposed me to a dozen common flowers, and I saw more roses and other strangely coloured flowers nearing V-day. If you are planning an elaborate wedding in New Zealand with lots of flowers, check out the flowers in season from this website.

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Valentine’s Day

The flower industry has three busy periods throughout the year: Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Christmas. Mother’s Day is the busiest and most challenging period because everyone has a mom.

Our month-long stretch coincidentally collides with V-day, which falls on the last day of our work.

In the week leading to V-day, all staff in the company had to work long hours, sometimes from 6 am to 11 pm, based on their responsibilities. Gardeners working on roses in the greenhouses start work early. Packers like us end up late preparing hundreds of orders for shipment the next day.

Flowers we do not usually see overwhelmed the chiller room in the week leading up to V-Day. We had rainbow or lollipop chrysanthemums, thousands of single-stalk red roses, and hundreds of mini gerberas bouquets, on top of big elaborate sunflower bouquets and the usual lilies.

I had to tie uncountable red ribbons over single-stalk roses and rainbow chrysanthemums and make hundreds of a new type of bouquet named Cupid Love. It has six red roses, a bunch of Baby’s breath and a single fern leaf.

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Ending

A month in the flower packhouse passed by unexpectedly fast. Maybe it’s the weeks leading to V-Day. The first fortnight was like a trial for the second fortnight of a mad rush.

While this isn’t a farm or orchard role, I must say I did learn more about wholesale bouquets and flowers here. Ever wonder who packed those supermarket flowers? Now I do!

Not to mention the names of the flowers and sniffing and molesting so many of them before they reach their intended customers. Heh.

Also the finer workings of a flower packhouse like the one I work. They have glasshouses to grow their roses, and gardens to grow their dahlias. Don’t forget the people doing the sales, the marketing, the creation, the stocks, the auction, and the delivery – basically, the cogs that keep the company functioning.

If you ever find yourself needing a bouquet but have a budget to keep, know that supermarkets have budgeted options that are not too shabby.