"Russian flower market depends on import"

Eugenia Babicheva, Director, OOO “Green House”, Republic of Adygea, Russia, participant in the FlowersExpo, talks about her vision of the event, about the sector presented at the exhibition and her own plans in the Russian flower market.

“Green House” has included the International exhibition “FlowersExpo” into its September calendar of events long ago. For several years already we have been active participants of the show.

This year we are going to the exhibition with far-reaching plans. We are expanding our production capacities, and are interested in breeding novelties, innovations and achievements of our colleagues.

Naturally it is very important for us to receive a quick-look analysis of the market, to find potential customers and renew former contacts.
 
We continue to acquaint exhibition visitors and participants with garden roses, adapted to growing in open ground in our climate and with new varieties for protected ground.

The company is successfully developing its retail network, that’s why it will be interesting for our specialists to visit floral shows and master classes conducted at the exhibition. We must keep pace with the times in this direction also.



We are always open for a dialogue with our partners and are glad to have this new meeting. Today a slowdown in the development of the local floriculture is a timely subject for our discussion. This tendency cannot be changed without governmental support. Flower production in Russia is rather difficult and expensive. We depend on foreign partners in purchasing rose seedlings, besides, the share of energy costs in the production cost is about 40%. Meanwhile, the pay-back period of the project is very long (8-10 years).

Positive moments of our flower market are changing of preferences of our customers in favor of flowers freshness and long vase life. Here our domestic growers have considerable advantages. Our flowers reach customers in a day or two after cutting.

On the other hand the Russian flower market has a seasonal character, and depends on import (its sales share makes up about 85%).
 
We thank Organizers of the exhibition for consistently high level of organization and holding of this flower forum. We are also grateful to the competition commission for high appreciation of our products.

Participation in “FlowersExpo” in Moscow enables us to stay abreast of the current trends and preferences of the Russian flower market customers.

We expect to see a lot of visitors here, most of which are already our clients and the rest are our potential clients.

We hope the exhibition will be a success, and we will have many interesting meetings and new partners.

We plan to present our roses at the exhibition. Most of all we are proud of our spray roses and our special new garden roses.

The Russian flower market has many strengths and advantages. There are some of them: very good logistics and flower handling, great love of the population for flowers, a lot of flower shops and easy availability.

Weak sides of the Russian flower market are high import costs, unstable exchange rate and unstable economy.

Our plans connected with the exhibition are an opportunity to meet with market players from different Russian regions and florists, to learn about the Russian flower market supply and demand.

With special pride we are planning to present at the exhibition Russian garden varieties grown as cut roses. For the first time in history Rose of the Russian selection can get into a bouquet in winter.

We also plan to discuss with our colleagues the issues of market organization and logistics. We work in a niche market. It is very difficult in Russia, since so far the flower market here is mainly looked upon as a mass trade.

The strength of the Russian market is that it exists. It is enormous and there is a demand that is important. Its weakness is that if it is not Moscow, the market is still poorly developed. The problems of logistics are obvious. I am constantly looking for a partnership with florists or small wholesalers. But we are facing enormous difficulties.
 
Partnership is what is gainful and needed by all not but one person only. It is necessary now to improve the level of work in the Russia flower market. Of course, one of the features of Russia is its vast territory. That’s why partnership, dissemination and obtaining of information are exclusively important in such conditions.

Our expectations from participation in the exhibition are gradual increase of our business in Russia. I am looking forward to seeing our colleagues from different Russian regions, who come to Moscow with a purpose to meet with their suppliers at “FlowersExpo”.

We would also like to expand our clients’ network in such countries as Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kirgizia and Mongolia whose representatives we meet at the exhibition.

At the exhibition we present a complete range of our garden plants, Unfortunately, it is impossible to display everything, We always try to beautifully design our booth, to make it attractive so that as many visitors as possible paid attention to our product range and high quality of our plants.

For over 20 years Twenthe Plant has been present on the Russian market. Our mission is to offer a complete range of high quality garden plants to our clients. Most of the offered plants are produces in our own nursery with an area of 80 ha.
 
As to the Russian market, its strong side, for us, is a great interest of almost all Russians in plants, flowers, seeds and bulbous plants. It creates strong demand very attractive to our business. The weak side of the sector is extreme weather conditions and a short season; fluctuations in economy and the currency rate; lack of know-how on the B2B market.

The exhibition, the way it is now, is attractive and very important for us.

Maybe it would be right to name the project “International Flowers Expo” because Moscow is a business link for specialists from other countries where this business is only developing.

Source: FlowersExpo