Rising Stars: Meet Andrea Grist

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Grist.

Andrea, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
At Florasource KC, we love flowers!! Florasource KC is a locally owned and operated wholesale floral supplier serving the KC Metro area and beyond. We are committed to sourcing beautiful flowers from around the world and bringing them to the floral artists of Kansas City.

We know that our designers are passionate about the origin of their flowers so we started the KC Growers Market as a branding initiative to designate flowers and greens that are local and domestically grown. The KC Growers Market allows us the opportunity to highlight some of our favorite agricultural partners and recognize their hard work and effort.

At Florasource KC we are extremely passionate about our flowers and everyone on staff has a wealth of design experience and floral education that helps to serve our customers. We work hand in hand with our designers to help with ordering, design inspiration, sourcing, pricing, and product options. I consider us to be a bridge between the agricultural sector and the creative world of our designers.

Can you talk to us about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
At Florasource KC/KC Growers Market we are all creatives so I feel like ideas are always flowing and we try our best to stay one step ahead of our designers so we can serve them well. We are small, so with that comes some fluidity for us to make quick changes and decisions that will benefit our customers the best.

As with sourcing for any agricultural product, there can be challenges. The production and availability of products and always changing and our goal is to try and fulfill requests made of us by utilizing our extensive network of industry resources.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Florasource KC/KC Growers Market specializes in sourcing beautiful flowers and greens, along with floral supplies, hard goods, holiday items, and event supplies. We also pride ourselves on being a source of inspiration for the creatives that we serve.

We are fortunate that our designers have been supportive of us and recognize our contribution to the floral community here in town. We have been able to expand our warehouse space in the last few years as well as build in the KC Bloom Hub. The KC Bloom Hub is a rentable design studio and conference room for designers to utilize if they need some additional space for production work.

We are very proud of our design experience and work really hard to stay up on trends and continue to educate ourselves on changes in the floral industry. We travel to many of the locations where we source flowers and strive to understand the agricultural challenges of growing cut flowers.

KC Growers Market is a passion of Florasource KC because we have always worked to support local and domestic sourcing of products when we are able.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
We love our designers in Kansas City and want to let them know that Florasource KC/KC Growers Market is truly a hometown source for all of their industry needs. We are locally owned and operated and work hard to source for our customers every day.

In this day and age of nameless, faceless impersonal online sources we bring back the personal industry connection that we feel like has been diminished. We encourage our designers to lean on us and let us do what we do best, so they can do what they do best.

We are here as both a business partner and a creative partner for them. We bring a great network of farms, education, and experience to the table.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.florasourcekc.com www.kcbloomhub.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/florasourcekansascity www.instagram.com/kcgrowersmarket www.instagram.com/kcbloomhub

Image Credits
Tiffany Marie Photography, Andrea K. Grist, Tiffany Marie Photography, and Florasource KC