Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert McLaughlin.
Robert, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My career began in 1984 working on a family greenhouse in Apopka, FL. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to be a plant grower and one day have a greenhouse of my own. As the years passed, I moved into various positions from a route driver, to store reset specialist for Winn Dixie, to sales and eventually became a business owner. We supplied most of the state’s Winn Dixie stores with plants and I eventually got into cut flowers at their request.
At the time I thought where do flowers come from? After seeing a few boxes from local suppliers, I could see Colombia was the largest producer in the world next to Holland so I began on a quest to become a direct importer. Back in the 1980’s, (Google hadn’t been invented yet) I went to the local book store to buy a Fodor’s guide to Colombia and checked out my parents’ encyclopedia collection for a quick study of where Colombia was and which regions grew flowers. This was the era of Miami Vice playing on the TV, so fortunately I had some clue about what I would be getting into. After sending faxes to farms in Colombia and getting little response, I decided to buy a plane ticket to Bogota, Colombia, to look in their phone books and get more fax numbers. Once growers heard I was in Bogota they became much more interested and my career as an importer took off.
The next 30 years took me to many countries in South and Central America as well as Europe looking for the best flowers. I’ve sold to and worked with most of the country’s largest supermarkets nationwide and spent 10 years in the eco-lifestyle ecommerce space with offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, and Quito, Ecuador. I’ve owned 2 companies in Ecuador over the years and helped lobby Congress for a free trade agreement with Ecuador.
During my entire career that has taken me across the world, I have always resided here in Central Florida. My wife and I have raised 2 great kids that have attended the University of Central Florida and Palm Beach Atlantic University. Orlando truly is our home.
In 2020 I was consulting for a company just south of Tampa when the COVID pandemic hit. The floral – and especially – event business was hit hard with many customers having to shut down and corporation canceling their events. The company closed the doors and I stepped in to save the business, keep employment for their staff. Then, we quite literally created Manatee Fresh out of the ashes of the pandemic in May 2020. Since then, we have expanded that business into being a direct importer, selling to supermarkets, and doing fulfillment for a large ecommerce company. I have taken everything I have learned over 37 years and applied it to the company with offices now in Orlando, Palmetto, and Miami.
Manatee Fresh is a local importer selling nationwide and based out of Orlando Florida. We are proud to be working with some of the top hotels, parks, and florists in Orlando and we are just getting started. 2022 will be a banner year for us as the parks and resorts come back to life.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Starting a business during the pandemic has actually been a scary endeavor. Because we started in May 2020 after the other company closed, we did not qualify for PPP funding or any government back assistance. We took on all the expenses of labor and operations with minimal capital. We had very little time to prepare. We had to buy trucks, computers, software, supplies and immediately diversify the business into new markets because COVID had wreaked havoc among the existing customers.
SBA assistance in my career has never been a help or an option. We always seem to make too much money or not enough money to qualify for help from the government. My jaded option is that unless you are requesting funding to open a restaurant where 5 have already failed, the SBA is not for you. We have been fortunate enough to have a few private investors in Orlando help us go and grow, thanks to their assistance we are growing 84% over last year and 2022 have us excited.
While we have grown fast, employed so many talented people, and created some of the most amazing supermarket floral departments for our customers, it has been a challenge trying to do business with large retailers like Publix, Winn Dixie, or Walmart. Even during a time when they could help small businesses, getting in with floral buyers of these giants to offer local products has been a challenge for 15 years. Coming together in local communities could be a positive for big companies like these but the flower departments are the big flashy departments getting attention from their marketing and PR departments.
We’ve been impressed with Manatee Fresh, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Manatee Fresh is an importer of cut flowers for the wholesale trade in over 30 states, including Hawaii. We ship e-commerce to consumers in all 50 states and we supply local florists, event planners, and supermarkets.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
The floral industry, in the next 5-10 years, should move more to overnight delivery and online marketing as the technology industry grows. At Manatee Fresh we are working on touch screen technology for retail environments where consumers can gain more information on where flowers are grown, how to care for plants and flowers, and how the workers and environment are affected in the supply chain.
We are putting these touch screens in stores this fall and adding scent marketing, proximity marketing, and RFID tagging all to improve the customer experience when buying a dozen roses. Have you ever wondered where roses are grown; how they are grown; how the workers are cared for; are they paid fair livable wages? Manatee Fresh offers a sense of source through transparency of all our products and we are developing the technology to communicate that directly in-store and online.
This month we are launching a delivery system with Door Dash to offer fast delivery all day long with a 30min turnaround in Orlando. This is just one of the new research and development projects we are working on for the future.
In July we had our first shipments of flowers from Mexico by sea into the port of Manatee just south of Tampa. Normally we receive flowers trucked from Mexico taking 7 days and with a 3 day sail time across the gulf in a refrigerated container we became the first ever to do this and at 20-30x less the carbon footprint of trucking.
Contact Info:
- Email: robert@manateefresh.com
- Website: manateefresh.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/Manateefresh
- Facebook: facebook.com/Manateefresh
Image Credits:
Manatee Fresh
