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The Best NYC Hustle Is Selling Items Found In Nature To New Yorkers For 100% Profit

Jen Carlson

Published Dec 12, 2019

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Tree branches, $10

Jen Carlson / Gothamist

Jen Carlson

Published Dec 12, 2019

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One of my small NYC obsessions (and there are a lot) is when I see shops selling Things Found In Nature to New Yorkers for 100% profit. It is the greatest little hustle in the city, benefiting all parties. It's low-cost for the buyer, who gets to import a tiny portion of free forest debris into their urban dwelling (Delightful! We truly can have it all here!), and no-cost for the seller, who gets all the sweet cash in return thanks to their entrepreneurial spirit. With commercial rents so high, we fully support the 100% markup pricing.

While the practice may extend beyond New York City proper, those out-of-town offerings are usually dressed up a bit (a ribbon, some acorn flair, berries and twine, artificial scents) because you need to entice the customer with something beyond what they can just pluck from their own backyard. Here in the city, however, most of us don't have a backyard (and your branch supplier knows it), so we're just happy to shove our noses into a simple bundle of evergreen—no frills, just pure olfactory joy. And we'll pay the small fee that will allow us to bring this dead piece of nature home, so that we may stare at it for a little while. As Henry David Thoreau once said, "We need the tonic of wildness." He, like you, was also never really alone with nature, so he's probably referring to bodega branches here.

Pinecones, $1 to $5

Jen Carlson / Gothamist

But how much are these pieces of nature bringing in at the end of the day? (Note: we're talking exclusively about branches and pinecones here, not full trees.) On Prince Street in SoHo, a shop is currently selling pinecones out of a box on the sidewalk ($1 to $5, depending on size), alongside another box filled with branches ($10). The owners told Gothamist they have been selling about 20 to 30 bunches of branches per week, which they collect themselves in New Jersey—the smart move, turning that green into straight green, no middle man.

Tree branches "with bow!" at Trader Joe's

Jen Carlson / Gothamist

Not everyone is cutting out the go-between, however. At a Manhattan Trader Joe's, you can find a similar offering: for $7.99 you can get what they've branded "mixed evergreen swag," and for $3.99 you can get an "evergreen bouquet." In both cases, the bundles sound fancier than they are—the lower-priced bundle, like at the independent shop, consists of just branches. The higher-priced ones offer little more, but as the signage will point out, they come "with bow!"

The grocery chain does not have a team collecting all of these items, however; at least the more expensive bunches are sourced from Bottomley Evergreens in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

I reached out to Bottomley to find out more about their deal with Trader Joe's — how many twigs are they sending to NYC each year? How much does Trader Joe's pay for this? I will update here if we get answers. But I encourage you to purchase your imported forest fragments from the mom & pop shops, a.k.a. your local bodega or flower shop or sidewalk tree seller.

Tree branches at Trader Joe's

Jen Carlson / Gothamist

The offerings don't disappear after the holidays, either. In the spring, you can find pussywillow branches, and even blooming tree branches (your cherry trees, your magnolia trees, and so on—my local bodega collects these from the neighborhood's tree-lined streets; much respect, here's my $7).

Don't cry for us, resident of the lush green suburbs, New Yorkers know what we want:

Meanwhile, another ubiquitous offering here is the bodega flower, often sold in bunches for stunningly low prices ($6, $8, etc). Ever wonder how they keep the cost for the customer so low? The majority of bodega flowers come from cut flower wholesalers, which are based in cheaper areas in and around the city, often near the airports, to allow for ease of distribution and cheaper warehouse space.

Additional reporting from Charline Charles.

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branches

nature

bodega

Jen Carlson

Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.

Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations

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