After 10 years of catering to the Eastern European market, VDA Prime has continued to expand their area of sales in recent years, further and further east, and now has their sights set on Kazakhstan.
The company specializes in exporting flower seeds and young breeding plants to Eastern European countries and are one of the only distributors in the field of breeding who have been given distribution agency to export seeds from almost all major breeding companies such as Syngenta Flowers, PanAmerican Seed, Evanthia, Benary, and Takii.
Kazakhstan as a flower market
"In Kazakhstan, we are working with a local partner to set up a business and grow from there," John Hoek of VDA Prime says. "In Kazakhstan, they have traditionally wanted to receive mainly cut flowers. They have not been in the country for a long time with flower seeds. This is partially also because the situation in Russia, which was a big supplier for the country, is now different from before. The cut flowers and bedding plants that often went to Kazakhstan from Russia are now received from other countries, but gradually more and more are grown for export, but certainly also for the local market."
However, development is still in its early days in Kazakhstan, so there are not many growers operating purely on flowers, although the number is growing every year. "We are in a tremendously growing market, and this was very much in evidence at the Greenhouses, Vegetable Growing, Horticulture, Irrigation and Flowers fair Fazenda Almaty 2023, which many companies attended to supply modern means of production such as greenhouses, automation, and fertilization. The market is becoming more professional, so this was the reason for us to focus mainly on the country."
John and Irma Hoek during the Greenhouse, Vegetable Growing, Horticulture, Irrigation, and Flowers. Fazenda, Almaty, Kazakhstan 2023.
LuxPrime
VDA Prime is, therefore, also going to open its own branch in the country, where they are currently working on a local office, staff, website, and web shop, or in other words, a completely new business. The company in Kazakhstan will be called LuxPrime because, as John puts it, "Flowers can be called an 'affordable luxury.' Even if things are going bad somewhere, you see that flowers are still bought, sometimes even more so, like during the Covid lockdowns. You see that flowers still bring joy to many people."
They plan to officially present the company within four months.
For more information:
John & Irina Hoek
VDA Prime B.V.
Tel.: +31 (0) 634 076 287
Email: vdaprimeseeds@outlook.com
www.vdaprime.com