The Returned Service Association annual poppy appeal is underway, 100 years after they were first sold in New Zealand.
The flowers that symbolise sacrifice are expected to raise around $2 million to support veterans and their families.
For war veteran Skin Frances, poppy production is a labour of love.
He looks after the one poppy-making machine that’s based in a Christchurch factory, and pumps out 1.2 million artificial flowers every year.
"To do that the machine has to run 11 months of the year. We've got a group of 14 volunteers. Some days it might work up to 12 hours a day.
"It takes all the individual components that make up a poppy – the button, the stem, the petal and the white ribbon, and just joins them together," said Frances.
Poppies grew in the battlefields of Belgium and France, and after the World War I were seen as a tribute to those who died.
Volunteers at the YMCA in France decided to use the poppy to raise funds for those affected by the war.
"One of those YMCA secretaries thought of the idea of the poppy being made by widows and orphans in the bombed-out areas in northern France being sent to veteran's organisations in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand," said historian, Stephen Clarke.
New Zealand ordered 250,000 poppies but they got delayed, so instead of being used for Armistice Day in 1921, they were used for Anzac Day in 1922.
One boy on the streets of Wellington told 1News that he liked poppies because "they shine out in amongst the people".
The little red flower is a national symbol of hope and unity, giving something back to those who went to war.
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