So What Do We Do at “Research and Testing Room”?

 Hello again, I am Kita from Classic.

This is the second entry to this blog which you can take a look at everyday operations at our Research and Testing Room—my main office.

So what exactly do we do here? The name of the room speaks for itself—we conduct research and testing with respect to cut-flowers (too obvious?!)

There are two different types of tasks we handle— One is more like experiment which the researcher choose a theme and run tests based on his or her own experiment design; The other is done by request from our buyers, which often involves data collection for the evaluation of the quality of flowers.

My job is to make sure to carry out any of those as planned or requested, and record all the data correctly.

The last part is the essence of my job—recording all the data correctly!

 

 

Why Do We Do Research and Testing?

Now what does it mean to do research on and testing cut-flowers?

Before getting into the subject, let’s talk about how our buyers ask us to test flowers.

We do not have any fixed guidelines or manuals for cut-flower quality tests, so on rare occasions we receive some requests in “I don’t know what I want, but just give me something!” style… well, that kind of request is possible only at a bar!

For the assessment of quality, we know, by gut and experience, we need to check volume, colors, vase life, and note any other unique characteristics of flowers and how they change over time, but just providing those information is not enough.

Of course, we need a set of data to define the quality of each flower, but such data set become valuable only when it matches with what the market/customers look at to decide quality.

In other words, we do our own quality test, but the items of data we collect cannot be too original—we need to cover all the items on the market’s and customers’ quality checklists.

By having in mind a story after receiving the result, we must take the test result beyond our room and integrate them into the marketing activities for our customer’s satisfaction. That is why I always ask them “what do you want to know?” and “what are you planning to do with the result?” For me, such information behind testing flowers is as important as the test sample flowers themselves.

 

Classic’s Carnations

Now finally, let’s talk about our recent quality test.

Regarding our red carnations, one of our customers has pointed out that they experience fading flower color faster than the others. 

It was a quality claim on one of our main products. Taking it as a serious matter, we hurried to the flower market and gathered red carnations from other importers to observe and compare how each changes in color over time.

This time, the purpose of the test was clear; we wanted to know about the color. However, to make this even a greater opportunity, we decided to check the cut-stage, the size of flower-head, and vase life as well.

The result turns out to be somewhat relieving, for now. We must consider that the color depends on the person’s preference or tastes, but all in all, the color of our red carnations stayed somewhere along in line with others, even as time goes by. (The result may be different if we conduct this test for a longer time period. Also, there are other things we want to check, so our research itself is continued. )

The interesting thing we also found out was that even though we are comparing a certain, the same variety of red carnations, the color differs depending on growers or where they are produced.

We are again reminded our mission as a linking bridge of the world’s best farms—to keep close communication with our partner farms to raise the overall quality standard and provide the best quality flowers to the Japanese market.

 

Satisfaction Comes in Classic’s Carnations

Anyhow, we will do our best for our customers’ satisfaction and we assure that you will be happy with the quality of our carnations. For Ohigan, farewell and welcome parties, Mother’s Day, and any other occasions— Classic’s carnations is your best choice!

 

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