Mother's Day gift baskets, food demand boost sales for flower retailer

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Despite industry-wide challenges local florists have faced because of coronavirus related closures and difficulty sourcing flowers from wholesalers, 1-800-Flowers.com is optimistic as it gears up for Mother's Day Sunday, one of its busiest delivery days of the year.

The New York-based online floral and gifts service had a 5.4 percent increase in revenue, the company announced in its first-quarter earnings report last week, bringing the consumer floral revenue to $152.6 million. However, the business is getting a major boost from its food and gift baskets, 1-800-Flowers.com CEO Chris McCann told FOX Business.

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"This extraordinary demand that we've been seeing in our gourmet food e-commerce divisions [has been] really since this crisis hit and as people were forced into this level of isolation," McCann Tuesday.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
FLWS	1 800 FLOWERS COM	7.66	+0.14	+1.93%

Indeed, the company, which also owns gift basket and food producer, Harry & David, saw a 27 percent increase from sales of its gourmet food baskets bringing revenue up to $95.9 million, outpacing the growth of its flowers.

The increased demand for delivery has prompted the company to ramp up health and safety measures as many others have done by implementing non-contact dropoffs and providing staffers with personal protective equipment in addition to increased sanitation efforts.

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"We organized a preparedness and response team to make sure we're doing everything possible to protect our customers and associates," McCann said.

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