In less than a month, on March 8, International Women's Day will be celebrated. It is one of the most important days for flower growers exporting to Russia. "It is a very popular holiday and all men are used to giving flowers. This year, due to the stronger and stabilized ruble importers and people can spend a bit more and will hopefully do so"
Tasya Kravchenko at the Flowers Expo in Moscow, Russia.
Red roses are nr.1
According to Mrs. Kravchenko, for the flowers coming from Ecuador, the red roses and spray roses are always the winners, chrysanthemums are also doing well. As for the flowers from other countries – tulips are very popular as they represent the spring.
Low prices
Even though the fact that the ruble strengthened, about 25 percent against the euro compared to last year, and stabilized over the last few months, the flower prices remain relatively low. "It is very difficult to push the prices back up again and especially back to the level they used to be, before the crisis. They are still about 39 percent lower than before the crisis", she says. Fortunately, towards Women's Day, the high demand results in higher prices. "They increase by about 25-30 percent."
Less and different flowers
The Russians are flower-minded people. "They buy flowers for different occasions, and as I am a Russian, I must say that some occasions, like weddings, birthdays, funerals, first day of school and of course Women's Day, are very important and cannot happen without the presence of flowers. However, during the crisis and still, we see that people keep buying flowers, but for example, instead of buying a large amount of stems they would buy less. Or instead of roses they would buy chrysanthemums, which are cheaper. Now, they are used to buying less or different flowers. They changed their preferences over the last years during the crisis, so I think it will take a while till the flower market will return to the 'old' situation where bouquets with big flowers are in high demand."
Florisol & Co
Florisol & Co was established in 1984 and started with one farm. Currently, the group consists of three farms in Ecuador, where they grow roses, gypsophila's, lilies, spray-roses, alstromelias and chrysanthemums on a total acreage of 32ha. The USA is their main export market, but they also export their flowers to Europe and Russia.
For more information:
Florisol & Co
Tasya Kravchenko
Email: taya@flopia.com
www.grupoflorisol.com