Business Analysis of Ornamental Plant Nurseries In Florida, 1995

Information is presented on sales, production, costs, assets and liabilities, and efficiency indicators for 50 wholesale ornamental plant nurseries in Florida for the year of 1995. Nursery products represented among the sampled firms included container and field-grown woody ornamentals, tropical foliage and flowering plants. The average firm had annual sales of nursery plants of $1.54 million (MM), total income of $1.91MM, production area of 34 acres, employment of 33 fulltime equivalent (FTE) persons, total costs of $1.74MM, and net firm income of $163 thousand (M). Total assets, including plant inventory, land, equipment, buildings, supplies, cash on hand, and accounts receivable, averaged $2.60MM, while total liabilities were $1.02MM. Value produced per square foot of growing area averaged $1.18 and total costs per square foot were $1.17. Value produced per full-time equivalent (FTE) of labor was $53M and growing space managed per FTE averaged 1.04 acres. Capital managed per FTE and per acre of growing space averaged $85M and $82M, respectively. Inventory turnover was 0.94. Costs as a share of value produced were 4.5% for management, 33.8% for labor, 32.0% for materials, 4.9% for equipment/facilities, 16.0% for overhead, 3.8% for depreciation, and 4.4% for interest. Net profit margin averaged 12.6%, rate of return on capital investment was 9.3%, and rate of return on net worth was 10.3%. Compared to previous results for 1990, firms in the Nursery Business Analysis program in 1995 were significantly larger, with production area and employment increased by 71% and 72%, respectively, while sales and net firm income increased by 45% and 52%, respectively, in constant-dollar terms. However, rate of return on net worth decreased by 22 percent. Similar information is presented for each sector of the industry and for large, small and highly profitable firms.