In 1908, Berlin florist Max Hübner revolutionized the flower trade with the "Blumenspenden-Vermittlungs-Vereinigung.
In 112 years, this has become the unlisted Fleurop AG, in which 5,000 German Fleurop florists each hold a single share.

That Amazon founder Jeff Bezos knows this story is unlikely. A pity, actually. Because Berlin's Max Hübner could have been his role model.

Max was born in December 1866 into rosy times. The family lived in a prestigious building on Prinzenstrasse in Kreuzberg, and the flower store of his parents Theodor and Alwine Hübner flourished on the first floor. The order books are full. Urbanization pushes nurseries to the unpopulated outskirts of the city and flower stores experience their heyday: Restaurants, cafés, theaters, operas, villas are full of flowers, even ladies' hat fashions specify fresh flowers.

Max married in 1896 and took over his parents' business five years later. By then he was already successfully importing flowers from the Riviera and exporting them to tsarist society in St. Petersburg. But the distances are long, and shipping sometimes takes longer than a flower is fresh. He wants to solve this problem. The first step in this direction is when Hübner gets himself elected chairman of the new "Association of German Flower Shop Owners" (V.D.B.) in 1904. Four years later, this network became the basis for the "Blumenspenden-Vermittlungs-Vereinigung" (B.V.V.) with 98 flower stores. Max suspects that he can't do much on his own, but together, florists are strong.

Instead of flowers, the networked florists now send a message by telegram or telephone with the exact customer request to a colleague in the recipient's town. For this purpose, Hübner develops the Fleurop code, a combination of abbreviations of Latin flower names and numbers for the quantity to be delivered. The costs are borne by the customer, 20 percent agency fee and ten percent transmission fee remain with the retailer who passes on the order. And the flowers? They arrive as quickly and freshly as never before.

In 1913, 350 stores were affiliated with the Vermittlungs-Vereinigung. By 1919, there were 1300 German and 133 international members. The flower platform grows. And it soon became clear that this market belonged to Max Hübner. A potential competitor would no longer be able to catch up in Germany and build up a new network. 100 years ago, it was apparently already true for disruptive business models: The winner takes it all.

In 1920, Max's wife Marie dies unexpectedly. Fortunately, the four children are grown up. Max appointed his son Herbert and his son-in-law Bruno Zauber as managing directors of the flower store on Prinzenstrasse and moved to Zurich himself. For love's sake. Frieda Krämer, also a widow, owns a prominent flower store there. On March 25, 1927, Max is elected in Zurich as the first president of the European flower donation agency. The name Fleurop (flores Europae) is born.

In 1935, Fleurop even introduces its own currency, the Fleurin. It is based on the Swiss franc and allows entrepreneurs to see at a glance how much an order is worth in guilders or francs when they receive it. In 1938, 1.25 million orders with a volume of eight million Reichsmarks were received; by 1939, orders worth the equivalent of 40 million euros were already being processed. To this day, neither Mother's Day (since 1922) nor Valentine's Day (since 1961) would be imaginable without Fleurop.

Max Hübner died in Zurich on November 11, 1946. His coffin is covered with white chrysanthemums and purple cattleya orchids.

112 years after its foundation, the worldwide Fleurop-Interflora company includes 50,000 Fleurop florists in 150 countries. Each year, more than 25 million flower orders are placed. In the German branch, every Fleurop florist is a shareholder in the unlisted stock corporation, which was created in 2003 from the GmbH founded in 1937. There are no external shareholders. Max Hübner's "Flower Donation Brokering Association" has evolved into a global network that is flourishing in the truest sense of the word. ®

Author: Jennifer Holleis