Why do we use burlap to wrap our flower arrangements?

When founder and CEO, Christina Stembel, started Farmgirl, one of the ways she wanted to change how flowers were sold was to reduce the single-use plastic that is endemic in the floral industry. She drafted a (nearly) shortlist of alternatives to the typical cellophane bouquet wrap and on it was burlap. Born out of her memories of potato sacks, that were a dime a dozen back home in Indiana where she grew up, Christina quickly learned that burlap is also compostable, a trait that gave it a leg up over the other materials on her list but especially over plastic.

But potatoes didn’t exactly abound in California. There was another crop that also shipped in sacks and could be found on every corner in the Bay Area - coffee. After a few calls to some local roasters, Christina quickly found one that would let her pick up the empty burlap sacks weekly, and alas the burlap wrap was born!