"Good packaging increases sales"

Fresco Flowers processes about 20 percent of the staggering number of roses that pass through our auction halls on a daily basis. 10 years old, the company is the outlet for eight growers in Kenya and one in Ethiopia where the roses are grown on a combined area of 270 ha in more than 100 different varieties.

Fresco Flowers’ slogan "We check, pack and supply roses' aptly describes their activities. When roses arrive from Kenya and Ethiopia in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) and Belgium (Liege) they are received by a cargo handler and transported to the company in Aalsmeer. The roses are then checked on numbers, temperatures, diseases, anomalies, etc. Then they are cut and put in water and - of course - packaged. Owner Gerjan Telleman: "Packaging promotes sales. The grower has a good product, but so has the competition. To sell the product presentation is key. In the right package, the right volume, with the information the customer requires."

"Our mission is to reliably provide as many customers as possible with fresh, top quality roses in the right packaging on a regular basis. We are a reliable partner for buyers and can pursue long-term business relationships because we require timely supply information, understand the quality standards of both buyers and breeders and also monitor our growers’ finance and administration."

The market is driven by economic developments in the market countries, exchange rates, oil prices, holidays and the weather. Fresco Flowers sees important trends in the market: further consolidation of Dutch export companies due to small margins, increasing internationalization of production and trade, increasing online business and an emerging retail segment. They are trying to play into these developments by close collaboration with breeders, growers, logistics and sales and continuous analysis of the different products, pricing, profit margin and the expected numbers.

Gerjan: "The strategic location at FloraHolland in Aalsmeer offers many opportunities. It enables us to distribute a significant portion of production through exporters/traders to Europe every week. This was proven over the past nine years. It’s why breeders like to cooperate with us. To further improve Fresco Flowers’ service and more efficiently match supply, stock, sales and administration we invested in a tailor-made ICT package by Koper Automatisering. This makes it possible to inform our customers about availability earlier and share product and market information."

Virtualization will likely change the role of auction and exporters, but how fast this will go is not easily predicted. Structural changes generally take place slowly in the horticultural world, however dynamic the trade in roses. Fresco Flowers finds it important that FloraHolland continues to maintain an attractive international marketplace. Gerjan: “We are keeping an eye on the new way of auctioning. Fresco Flowers is positive about the future and in recent months has invested significantly in sales, ICT, marketing and modernization of the offices at the auction to handle the expected supply growth."