Bill Fernandez, the founder and president of Continental Flowers in Miami, got started in the cut flower business in 1968 when he was 14 years old, helping out in his mother’s small florist shop in Hialeah, called Le Printemps.
Six years later, he decided to start his own flower importing and distribution business, with one employee (himself) and a used pizza van as a delivery truck. Continental Flowers today has 400 employees, owns five flower farms in Colombia, imports cut flowers from dozens of growers in six other Latin nations and sells about 750 million stems (flowers) each year to around 1,000 flower wholesalers and supermarkets all over the United States.
Even though he was not the first local wholesaler to import cut flowers from Colombia, Fernandez was able to build a successful national market in a highly competitive sector by strategically targeting wholesale customers in underserved cities, providing unique, high quality flower types and providing fast, reliable service.
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