Purchasing Manager, Steve Catando recently wrote a guest entry for producenews.com about the importance of roses in the importer/wholesale market. Take a look:
Roses continue to play crucial role for floral importers and wholesalers
- by Steve Catando | July 22, 2015
At DVFlora, rose sales make up almost one-quarter of every sale. So, not including greens, and tropicals our rose sales make up 24 percent of our fresh cut flower sales. Not only are these current sales important but also they are continuing to grow. At DVflora our rose sales typically grow at a rate of 6 percent a year.
There are many reasons roses are so popular and important and I’ll explain a few of them.
• For starters, roses have a basic fundamental aspect that makes them popular; they are ready-to-use. Sure, roses need some hydration time and some varieties open more than others, but, in general, when a florist gets their roses they can begin their work.
• Vase life and longevity also explain why roses have captured consumer demand for so long. Most roses will last around 10-plus days in the hands of the consumer.
• Another appealing factor of the rose is the deep amount of varieties that are available today. Red roses remain the No. 1 selling color on an annual basis. In fact, 30 percent of the roses that we sell are red. The red variety Freedom has become the most widely grown and available variety in South America and has built a strong demand in North America. Despite the fact that Freedom became the variety leader, we typically inventory anywhere from eight to 12 other red varieties from various sources (Intuition, Hearts, Forever Young, Charlene, Corazon, Black Pearl, Cherry Love, Black Magic, Opium, Sexy Red, Charlotte).
• That’s another interesting aspect about roses — even within one product line, and then within one color, there are still differences in terms of petal count, opening capability, color shade, longevity, etc. A florist may use one rose for one application and another variety for a different application. It is an incredibly diverse flower.
Since roses are relatively ready-to-use, provide such diversity in variety and provide strong vase life, florists rely on roses for all of their work —party, funeral, everyday, wedding, home décor, birthday and much more.
Because roses represent such a large part of our business, one challenge can be the ability to provide consistency. What I mean is that in order to meet demand, we (like many import/wholesale distributors) carry roses from several sources. South America — mainly Ecuador and Colombia — are the primary regions from which we procure roses. Within these regions there are hundreds of farms with numerous varieties and qualities. A variety that grows well in Ecuador may not be suited for Colombia and vice versa.
In our search for consistency, we have collaborated with some key partner farms to develop our own brand — the “DVFlora” brand of roses. We worked closely with our partner farms to develop and agree on the product specifications so that the roses meet the specs every single time.
Another interesting fact about the world supply of roses is that Africa is also a gigantic producer of roses, primarily in Kenya and Ethiopia. These regions are similar in elevation and proximity to the equator and have the capability of providing top-quality roses similar to those from Ecuador. Traditionally speaking, Africa has supplied Europe while South America has supplied North America.
The world is changing and technologies, communication systems, and new logistics routes are providing the ability for a crisscross world-trading model to commence. There are now South American farms supplying Europe and Russia and there are African farms supplying North American buyers. All of this doesn’t happen overnight, but it’s evident to see that change is taking place.
