FLORAHOLLAND (18 October 2010) - FloraHolland’s Board of Directors, Managing Board, and Regional Boards’ members are intensively discussing nowadays about the organization’s preferred strategy and policy about involvement in international marketing activities.
From one hand – there are requests from growers, and growers’ groups, to get FloraHolland’s support for their activities of direct sales to retailing consumers. While from the other hand, there is the opposing standpoint of the traders’ association – VGB – demanding to maintain the traditional structure of the Dutch floriculture industry, where trading is solely made by traders, growers specialized in production, and the auctions are the platform where the transactions are organized.
FloraHolland leaders believe that the organization should support its members when they deal with international ‘retail giants’ by providing them with market knowledge, advise and contacts. Yet, the role of the Dutch trading sector – wholesalers and exporters – is very important to the industry; FloraHolland has no intention to weaken this sector.
FloraHolland would like to be more involved in international trading activities, but never actually to trade; it will never be the owner of the flowers, but only the platform for trading between growers and traders.
In recent years more and more producers are interested in where their products are sold or used. They try to add value to their products for a ‘better fit’ in the end-users’ requirements.
From the other hand, big retail chains (supermarkets, garden centers, etcetera) seek direct contacts to producers, in order to get more influence on the product’s quality, to shorten logistic lines, and to save costs.
Many growers like to deal with those chains, but they lack the information and the knowledge of trading and dealing. They also face problems of credit: the big chains are used to get credit – sometimes up to 60 days - from traders; while growers are used to be instantly paid by the auction.
Anyhow, those new situations are related, so far, mainly to the sector of big-scale retailers. This is an emerging sector; but unlike the fruit and vegetables – the floriculture trade through this channel is not dominating the market (with the exception of certain countries). For the florist shops the traditional way of trading is still optimal.
FloraHolland chairman Bernard Oosterom said: “We believe that a transparent product-chain is the only way for cooperation”.