Multiflora is the largest flower auction in Africa, located in Johannesburg, South Africa. Over 300 million flower stems are auctioned per year at Multiflora, averaging over 1 million stems sold each day in just three to four hours. The auction is where most of the country's flowers are bought and sold by over 400 florists and wholesalers. Bidding is fast-paced and requires an understanding of pricing codes and stem counts to be successful. While complex, the auction system works to efficiently distribute flowers from growers to retailers across South Africa.

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Words: Natalie Bosman
he saying “wake
up and smell the
roses” takes on a
different meaning
when you’re heading for the
Multiflora flower market in
Johannesburg south at 4am.
This is round about the time
that many of the wholesalers
start their day, and even though
I'm still yawning myself awake,
it’s business as usual by the time
I get there.
Already the team from the
renowned Jason’s Flowers are
checking their refrigerator
rooms for gaps in their stock,
and perusing the rows and rows
of flowers waiting to take their
places in the 7am flower auction.
This is Joburg’s other stock
exchange, and the place from
which the flowers of almost
every city, town and village in
the country originate. It might
be a vastly different setting to
the shiny Johannesburg Stock
Exchange in Sandton, but the
buying and selling that goes on in
Multiflora’s impressive 50 000m2
of floor space is uncannily like
the fluctuations of the various
currencies battling for market
dominance every day.
Grass roots
It’s a good thing, then, that my
guide for the morning (Shantal
Michael, niece to Jason Xavier
of Jason’s Flowers) comes armed
with a BComm Accounts degree
and honours in Investment
Management, because once the
auction clock starts counting
down it’s a ruthless three
hours of bidding, stopping only
momentarily to bring in the next
batch of flower bunches and start
all over again.
Flowers are sold by stem at
the auction, so you need to know
how many stems there are in a
A blooming
marketBraving the
bidding frenzy at
the largest flower
auction in Africa
with an early-bird
tour of Joburg’s
very own Multiflora
flower market
T

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bunch (with roses, it’s always 20),
how many bunches in a container
and how many containers you
need to bid for.All of this has to
calculated in a split second and,
to make the maths just that much
more intricate, you also have to
remember that different flowers
are sold in different stem lengths.
Shantal has only recently
joined the family business, but the
flower industry is in her blood.
She is a third-generation flower
wholesaler and proud of the fact
that her grandfather first started
selling flowers on the street.
You could say that he planted
the seed, so to speak, for Jason’s
Flowers, which today is one of
the largest flower wholesalers in
the Multiflora community.
Going once...
This is no small feat, especially
if you consider that Multiflora
is the largest flower auction in
Africa. Six days a week, Monday
to Saturday, the 7am auction takes
place on behalf of around 600
flower growers. It’s a bit of an
understatement to say that there’s
a lot to take in when you first
walk into the auction hall, and
meet the four auctioneers who
are furiously and simultaneously
punting their products.
If, like me, you’re not one of
the 400-odd florists, distributors
and wholesalers who regularly
attend the auction, the grading
and various letters signalling
deviations in stems, petals,
colours and lengths will be a blur
of flashing red symbols.
The letter L, for example,
stands for “two or more
deviations”, Shantal informs me,
in between helping Jason bid
for certain stock they need that
morning. H, meanwhile, warns of
“discoloured or damaged stems
and leaves”.
Mastering the codes takes
months of practice, and then
there’s also the auction etiquette
to assimilate.You need to wait
“This is Joburg’s other stock
exchange, and the place where
almost every city, town and village in
the country’s flowers originate from.”
Multiflora's auction hall

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for a 30c drop on every new item
before pushing your button to
place a bid. If you are too eager
and hit the button before the 30c
drop, then the auctioneer restarts
the clock and automatically puts
it up by R1, because he or she
reads your eagerness as a signal
that there is demand for the item.
“It’s basically the fastest finger
first,” says Shantal, with a laugh at
my overwhelmed expression.
She assures me that the
auctioneers do make mistakes
themselves, sometimes setting
the price too low.When that
happens, if you’re sharp enough
to do the math and hit that
button, then it’s your good luck.
This cyclical kind of democracy is
strangely comforting.
Take time to grow
the roses
It's really only once you’ve
wrapped your head around
the impressive systems that
Multiflora has in place that you
begin to appreciate the labour
of love that drives the industry.
I ask Jason why flowers are so
expensive, and he immediately
counters that he thinks flowers
are cheap. Per stem, a rose costs
on average R1,50 to grow. If you
take into account the various
costs for labour, fertiliser,
electricity needed to fuel
the hot houses and so forth,
then buying a bunch of roses
that cost at least R30 to grow
for around R50 (directly from a
wholesaler at Multiflora) seems
something of a bargain.
Multiflora has come a long
way since it first opened its
“Multiflora auctions 300 million flower stems
per year.That's 1 million flower stems auctioned
per day in just three to four hours.”
doors on October 19 1945 in
Jeppe Street Johannesburg. Some
things have changed, such as the
commercialisation of a day like
Valentine’s Day (undoubtedly the
most lucrative day of the year for
everyone in the flower industry),
and some things have stayed the
same since time immemorial.
Roses are still red, violets
are still blue, and even though
lilac is the colour “trending” at
the moment, there’s nothing
quite like a bunch of flowers to
say “I love you”.
With thanks to ...
● Jason’s Flowers,Multiflora Building,
Marjorie Str,City Deep,
+27(0)116132818,jasonsflowers.co.za.
● Multiflora Head Office,
+27 (0)11 613-4011,multiflora.co.za