Bouquet blending problem

The Flower Box is a small company that provides a flower bouquet delivery service
to customers in Gauteng. A customer would typically order online from the list of
available bouquets, denoted by J = {1, . . . , 6} and the company then creates the
ordered bouquet j ∈ J before delivering it to the designated recipient. The company
sources eight different flower types from one supplier (in bunches of ten flowers).
The purchasing cost (in R/bunch) and maximum weekly availability (in bunches)
of flower type i is denoted by pi and mi , respectively, where i ∈ I = {1, . . . , 8} and



 1 Lilies




 2 Roses




 3 Tulips

4 Proteas
I=


 5 Lavender




 6 Sunflowers




 7 Gyps

8 Tree fern.

The combinations of flowers used in the company’s different bouquets are indicated
in Table 1. For example, bouquet 1 is a mix of all flower types, except Lilies and
Proteas. The Flower Box uses Gyps and Tree fern as filler flowers in all their
Table 1: Flowers used in different bouquets delivered by The Flower Box.

Bouquet
Flower 1 2 3 4 5 6
Lilies × ××
Roses × × × ×
Tulips × × ×
Proteas × ×
Lavender × × ×
Sunflowers × × ×
Gyps × × × × × ×
Tree fern × × × × × ×

bouquets. Due to customer requirements no more than 30% of all the flowers in each
bouquet is allowed to be Tree fern and Gyps (combined). In addition, each bouquet
must consist of at least 25 flowers (this includes flowers from all flower types). Due
to the nationwide lockdown the The Flower Box experienced a steep increase in
online orders, and it is struggling to meet demand. Currently the company has a
weekly demand of dj (in number of bouquets) for bouquet type j ∈ J .
If xij denotes the number of flowers of type i ∈ I used in bouquet j ∈ J and nj
the number of bouquet j ∈ J produced, formulate a Linear Program (LP) that can
help The Flower Box to meet their weekly demand at the lowest possible cost.

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