"The collaboration with Blueroots offers the opportunity to strengthen both our national and international competitive position. The worldwide growth of floriculture takes place mainly in Asia and to a small extent in North America."
Thus is quoted CEO of Royal FloraHolland Steven van Schilfgaarde, speaking about the collaboration with Blueroots in the cooperation's own customer magazine GROW. The initiative for Blueroots originally came from the Dutch Flower Group and FleuraMetz with the goal of positioning in the market a competitor for Floriday. It is now a joint venture since February 2019. How did this come about? "At the General Members' Meeting in December 2017, I had already invited Marco van Zijverden (CEO of Dutch Flower Group) to link Blueroots to Floriday. The time was not yet ripe for it, but that gradually changed. At that time I was already convinced that trading companies as well as Royal FloraHolland could benefit from a collaboration which would strengthen their position within the digital ecosystem. Since then we've further defined our strategy."
Mutual interests
Steven: "The choice to focus on our core activities has given the Blueroots shareholders the confidence that our mutual interests are in line with each other. This created a good foundation for discussion. Subsequently, a great deal of ground had to be covered before arriving at the decision to develop Blueroots further as a joint venture."
Worldwide growth of floriculture
Steven stresses that this collaboration offers the opportunity to strengthen both our national and international competitive position. "We must not lose sight of the fact that the worldwide growth of floriculture takes place mainly in Asia and to a small extent in North America." Until 2030 the predicted growth there is 80% and in Europe only 20%. We will have to respond to this jointly as the Netherlands."
Neutral character
"Traditionally our marketplace has a neutral character. This befits a cooperative. Together we decided to also offer non-members access to our marketplace. The same applies to the digital ecosystem. In respect of linking Blueroots to Floriday, it should not result in an exclusive collaboration with participating trading companies and this is crucial. Other trading companies could join as well based on the Blueroots infrastructure provided they are a member of the VGB and participate in Floridata."
Optimal pricing
Royal FloraHolland's CEO indicated that linking as many growers and customers as possible to our marketplace is the ultimate goal. "It ensures optimal pricing and the increase of sales opportunities. All this is completely in line with our role as neutral marketplace. I'm convinced that the collaboration with Blueroots gives an important impetus to the development of Floriday, our digital platform. Under the leadership of Gerhard van der Bijl, who is also Chief Digital Officer in addition to COO, we will integrate the digital platform activities in our commercial operation. This will allow us to make optimal use of the opportunities digitization has to offer."
source: Royal FloraHolland