The team of BellaRosa at the Proflora in Bogota, Colombia.
A Difficult year
Last year has been a challenging year for many growers all over the world, also for BellaRosa and Rose Connection. According to Vasconez, the worldwide demand for roses was less than usual and the unrest in their main market Russia had an impact on the farms. "Before the crisis in Russia, around 40% of our production volume went over there. When the crises took off, the volumes started to drop," says Vasconez. Besides that, they also had to deal with the increased value of the US dollar compared to the euro, another major market of BellaRosa and Rose Connection. "The strengthening of the value of the US dollar made it very difficult for us to compete with the Colombian roses, price wise," she says.
Quality main focus
In spite of this difficult year, the farms kept fighting and striving to achieve the highest quality possible. "The best strategy to keep our farms in this complicated world situation has been working with qualified personnel, based on a solid structure with control in all areas of our businesses not only looking over productivity but focusing to get the best quality roses," says Vasconez.
Niche market
These high quality flowers enabled them to enter a niche market. "We currently supply roses for special occasions, like weddings and events. This is a special niche where quality is of high importance," says Vasconez. Besides that, when acting in a niche market, the requirements of the customers are very important. "We choose our varieties from customer preferences," she says. For this reason, they have decided to offer a broad assortment of varieties, which they selected from intensive market research. Currently, we grow around 88 varieties. And to optimize the offer, we continuously change the assortment, every year we change 10% of our plants to the newest varieties with better traits and beauty."
Keeping on track
Fortunately, the farms kept on track. "We are working with new customers in Russia, which enabled us to increase our volumes again over there. Now, again 40 percent of our production volume is going to Russia. You see that people are willing to pay for quality and this is also visible in other countries like Europe. Of course, we still have currency issues, but if you are able to deliver roses with the desired quality, people do not mind paying a little extra. All over the world we see a difference in taste regarding color, stem length and bud size, but the demand for high quality roses with a long shelf life can be observed anywhere," she says.
Farms
BellaRosa is a rose farm that grows 24 million roses per year. At Rose Connection around 15 million roses are being produced annually. Both farms are situated in Ecuador. Together they grow around 88 rose varieties, which they mainly export to Russia, Europe, North America and some Asian countries. In total, they export to 84 countries around the world.
For more information
Bella Rosa and Rose Connection
Sofia Vasconez
Email: [email protected]
www.bellarosa.com
www.roseconnection.ec
