Rene van Rems Industry buyers, as well as design and merchandising professionals, want to know what the trends are.

Last year in this space, I pointed out a few trends that are happening in the entire store and how they can affect floral holiday sales in supermarkets. Those points were:

• Customers are looking mostly for value today,

• Customers want to be connected today, and

• Customers are making fewer trips but buying more each trip.

I believe that each of these predictions was on target, and that if supermarket floral departments focused on action plans related to these trends, they had a good chance for growth in 2012.

Transportation has been called “the forgotten link” in the chain of flower distribution for a good reason. The flower supply chain is commonly thought of as grower to importer to bouquet maker or wholesale florist to retailer, forgetting how many companies and people are involved with getting flowers from one of those links to another.

Supervalu Inc. announced Jan. 10 that it will sell its Albertsons, Acme, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's and Star Market stores and related Osco and Sav-on in-store pharmacies to AB Acquisition LLC, an affiliate of a Cerberus Capital Management L.P.-led investor consortium, in a transaction valued at $3.3 billion.

The sale to AB Acquisition includes 877 stores for $100 million in cash. Additionally, the group will assume $3.2 billion in existing debt, according to a press release issued by Supervalu.

The World Floral Expo returns to New York for its second straight year. In early December, the show had booked 35 exhibitors from about a dozen countries.

The show will run at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. March 13-15, according to Jasper van Dijk, marketing manager for the sponsor, HPP Exhibitions in Holland. The Javits Center has about 48,000 square feet of exhibit area.

Excitement builds every January as the Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association races toward the year’s kick-off premiere show — its Tropical Plant Industry Exposition. We anticipate a strong spring market for tropical and foliage plants. The tropical eye candy that fills the entire Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL, for TPIE attracts tropical and foliage plant buyers from throughout the United States and nearly 50 countries.