The majority of the bromeliads grown in China are for public areas like airports and governmental buildings. For these purposes, the traditional red colored ones in a 12-14 cm pot are used the most. However, one of world’s largest bromeliad young plant producers Deroose Plants sees more opportunities to increase the demand for this crop and particularly on the consumer end.
Amanda Liu at the IPM Shanghai presenting the mini bormeliads.
"We believe it will be an interesting product for end consumer too. In order to prove and test this, we started to produce mini bromeliads in different colors on our own and so far the reactions are positive", says Amanda Liu , Marketing Manager at Deroose Plants.
Bromeliads for the end consumer
"Bromeliads are wonderful indoor pot plants because of long shelf life and easy to maintain. Especially mini (9 cm pot) and nano bromeliads are very suitable for design. Demand of mini Bromeliads is increasing in Europe. Some customers are already booking some varieties and ask for exclusivity", says Liu.
Buying flowers or plants for own consumption is still relatively new to the Chinese consumer, it is more often bought for someone as a gift. This also counts for the bromeliad. Besides the fact that most bromeliads grown are destined for public areas, the ones bought by consumers are often used as gifts. For both occasions, one chooses for a medium sized (12-14 cm pot) bromeliad in the traditional red color.
However, Deroose Plants sees good opportunities for this product to sell it to the end consumer. "With the rise of the online shops, we see more and more flowers and plants sold through this channel. We see good potential for smaller sized and non-traditional colored bromeliads to be sold to the end consumer." We have noticed that the consumers like the orange, pink and other non-traditional colors in smaller sized (9cm) pots. These smaller sized plants are not only very suitable to put on the consumer's desk, they are also very easy to transport."
The mini bromeliads in different colors.
Promoting
The majority of the current bromeliad growers are growing the traditional red bromeliads and will probably not shift to another crop without knowing the advantages. "They are doing good business, but we think they can get more out of it by tapping into a new target group."
For this reason, Deroose Plants decided to start promoting the crop and showing the crop and creating the demand among the end consumers. "We now grow a few finished plants at their propagation location in Langxia, China, to promote the products. "So far, and at the exhibition, we saw a good interest for the crop and we therefore have high hopes that it will be a good addition for the grower."
For more information
Deroose Plants
Amanda Liu
Deroose Plants
Email: amanda.liu@derooseplantschina.com
www.derooseplants.com