The best-selling grocery flowers are not the same all year. Roses led U.S. floral sales in February and July, bouquets led in the weeks around Thanksgiving, potted plants led in December and outdoor plants took the top spot in spring, according to IFPA’s point-of-sales reports built on Circana data. This guide ranks the categories by dollars, shows what each sells for per unit and explains what shifts by season, so buyers can match space and orders to demand.
Which grocery flower categories sell the most?
The table shows the three biggest categories in each four-week period IFPA has reported over the past year. IFPA does not publish a separate cut-flower line, so consumer bunches are the closest proxy for loose stems.
| Four weeks ending | No. 1 | No. 2 | No. 3 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov. 30, 2025 | Bouquets, $124.7M | Roses, $121.2M | Potted plants, $115.3M |
| Dec. 28, 2025 | Potted plants, $152.3M | Roses, $125.7M | Bouquets, $119.6M |
| Feb. 22, 2026 | Roses, $423.8M | Arrangements, $258.4M | Bouquets, $245.0M |
| May 17, 2026 | Outdoor plants, $448.3M | Bouquets, $367.4M | Roses, $359.4M |
| June 14, 2026 | Outdoor plants, $288.5M | Bouquets, $144.4M | Roses, $141.6M |
| July 12, 2026 | Roses, $117.3M | Bouquets, $114.6M | Outdoor plants, $101.3M |
Source: IFPA U.S. Floral Retail Point of Sales reports, Circana Integrated Fresh, MULO. IFPA’s tables occasionally carry label inconsistencies, so figures follow each report’s stated four-week period.
Roses: the most dependable earner
Roses ranked in the top three in every period above. Dollar growth versus a year earlier ran from +0.9% in the May period to +13.6% in July, and IFPA reported roses up 13.0% in December. Price per unit ranged from $13.60 in November to $17.69 around Valentine’s Day. For the Valentine’s planning side, see our Valentine’s floral program guide.
Bouquets: price is doing the work
Bouquets are the volume workhorse, but recent growth leans on price. In the four weeks ending July 12, bouquet dollars rose 6.4% while units fell 2.0% and price per unit rose 8.6% to $14.02. In the June period, dollars rose 3.0% on units down 3.4% and price up 6.6%. May was the exception: dollars up 7.8% with units up 1.2% at $16.81. Watch the unit line, not only dollars.
Arrangements: the unit-growth outlier
Arrangements carry the highest price per unit, $29.02 to $35.53 across the reports, and they grew units in every period reported. In the June period dollars rose 11.2% and units 12.5%, and in July dollars rose 12.4% and units 13.8%, with price per unit down about 1% each time. Arrangements are growing by selling more pieces, not by raising prices.
Consumer bunches and plants: the swing categories
Consumer bunches sold at $6.98 to $7.83 per unit and grew dollars in every period reported, although units slipped 4.6% in the February window and 0.6% in May. Plants swing with the calendar: outdoor plants went from $448.3M in the May period to $101.3M in July, and potted plants fell 8.3% in dollars in June as post-Easter demand normalized. IFPA noted that outdoor plants overtook flowers as the top-selling segment at the start of summer.
How big is the department, and where is it growing?
IFPA’s July report put 52-week U.S. floral sales at $10.52 billion, up 4.9%, on 966.1 million units, up 0.9%, so most growth is price. Regionally, the Southeast grew dollars 10.9% in the four weeks ending July 12, followed by the Plains at 10.0% and South Central at 9.9%. California was the slowest at 4.9%. Over 52 weeks South Central led at +8.3% and California trailed at +2.5%. Regional mix matters when you read national category rankings.
What this means for your planogram
- Keep roses and bouquets as the year-round anchor, since they rank in the top three in nearly every period.
- Treat outdoor plants as a seasonal space renter. Plan the handoff back to flowers by July.
- Give arrangements a defined price ladder. They are the category adding units at about $29 to $35.
- Check bouquet unit trends against price before assuming growth is healthy.
For department-level profitability, see our summary of the IFPA supermarket floral benchmarks, and for the next holiday window, our poinsettia program guide.
Takeaways: stocking the best-selling grocery flowers
- The best-selling grocery flowers by dollars rotate: roses and bouquets most of the year, potted plants in December, outdoor plants in spring.
- Bouquet growth has leaned on price, with units down in two of the three latest periods.
- Arrangements and roses are the units-and-dollars growth stories.
- Use your own scan data to confirm these national patterns by region before resetting space.
Sources: IFPA U.S. Floral Retail Point of Sales, February 2026 and June 2026 reports, plus the November and December 2025, May and July 2026 editions. Photo: Georg Eiermann / Unsplash.
Travis Rigby is the publisher of SuperFloral, the news source for the mass-market floral industry. He leads its website and weekly newsletter, covering what matters to growers, breeders, supermarket floral buyers and category managers. Travis studied journalism at the University of Utah, founded and led PosterGarden.com for 27 years, and is president of FlowerBox.com.
