Bergamotte likes working with contracts: "It provides a lot of convenience"

Cor Kromhout is the head plant buyer at Bergamotte, the leading D2C (Direct to consumer) player in flowers and plants in France. During a tour of the company, Cor explains why contracts in Floriday work so well for them.

Bergamotte is also known in the industry as Very Bloom. In 2021, Bergamotte became part of the Bloom & Wild Group, which also includes Bloom & Wild and Bloomon. The Bergamotte brand and its own way of sourcing has been retained.

Long-term lines with growers
Cor explains how they work with Floriday: "We work entirely in Floriday's screens. Here, we mainly use the 'contracts' function. In the contracts, we set out the long-term lines we have agreed with growers."

Between the running lines to put together the bouquets of Bergamotte, Bloom & Wild, and Bloomon, a section is reserved for Bergamotte's stock of plants. That shows the efficient way of ordering. "We keep a small stock but are never sold out. For each month, we make a forecast. With this, we continuously extend the contracts we have established with growers. We usually set a bandwidth of 20%. So we have a margin within which we can order. Every Wednesday morning, we place the orders as standing orders on these contracts."

Flexible ordering and fewer errors
Cor explains that Bergamotte previously did not procure based on contracts: "In FloraXchange, we worked with customer-specific supply. This offer was based on regular supply. This did not always go well, as sometimes this was accidentally turned off for us, preventing us from ordering on it. In Floriday, we started working with contracts. This was not yet possible in FloraXchange."

This new way of working offers advantages for Cor and the procurement team: "We order the quantities we need based on these fixed lines. Colleagues can also just take over if I am not around for a while. They can easily grab the contract and place a standing order on it. For example, no incorrect prices, types, or pot sizes can be ordered."

Flexible cooperation with growers
For growers, it took some getting used to working this way at first, but now it is fine for both. Cor: "The word contract sounds quite strict, but for both parties, we deal with this flexibly. For us, it is nice to issue the forecast for fixed lines in this way. The grower can already take into account the sales that are expected." Geest Potplanten is one of the growers Bergamotte has a contract with. Esther van Geest Potplanten says: "Thanks to the clarity of Bergamotte's contract rules and forecast, ordering for Cor and processing the order is a breeze for us!"

Cor: "The personal contact with the grower will, of course, remain as usual. All agreements are fixed in the contracts. That way, conversations with the grower can be about other things."

Renewed collections
Bergemotte's website states that they work with constantly updated collections. To search for new products, Cor uses the Explorer: "For example, if the product manager says he wants to run potted lilies, I search the Explorer for items and growers offering this. Here, we mainly look at expected availability. It would be nice if growers fill in this data accurately so that we can start making our forecasts based on it. This allows us to easily see what is available in the market."