Netherlands: Christmas preparations at VIP roses

For Florismart's Behind the Scenes Christmas special they paid a visit to VIP Roses. They met up with Marc Sassen, one of the three brothers who own VIP roses, in their box at the Aalsmeer Auction. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what they grow, because roses were, quite literally everywhere. In the summer months, they grow beautiful garden roses in their greenhouses in the Netherlands. But in winter their focus shifts to the other part of the business: they glitter, wax and dip roses. Because the demand for their product is so high, they cannot grow all the roses themselves.

It all started fifteen years ago when they were growing Dolce Vita roses (two-toned roses with a white head and pink centre). They failed to get the centre to ‘pink-up’, which is the Dolce Vita trade mark. This meant that they now had B-quality roses. This failed crop gave the brothers an idea. Why not add a bit of colour? That is when they started experimenting with colour treatments to see what effect this would give. At first, in a little shack behind the farmhouse. They quickly realised there was a market for it, and expanded their sparkling business. Their special roses have grown to become more and more popular ever since.

They always work with different themes, such as Christmas, Valentine’s, Easter and Halloween for example. Every theme has a different mix: VIP Roses have a special Choco topping Christmas mix, but also have a Choco topping for Halloween and a special ‘Love mix’. Glitter, chocolate, wax and frost, they do it all. While walking about the warehouse, the Florismart team were especially taken aback by the frosted roses and felt they were very suitable for Christmas.

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