"The industry is more optimistic about this year's Mother's Day, and our sales are already around 15 percent higher compared to last year", says Stephane Maurice, director of MFresh. This French company imports its roses from Kenyan rose farm Black Tulip and sells it to wholesalers all over France. In this country, Mother's Day will be celebrated on May 27 this year and Stephane's job is almost done. "We already delivered around 95 percent of our orders."
On the left Stephane Maurice of MFresh and Mohan Choudhery of Black Tulip Kenya at the IFTF in Vijfhuizen, the Netherlands.
This year, however, there is no national holiday and the forecast for the weekend seems to be better. However, Stephane noticed that last year's dip left its marks as he is receiving the orders late this year. "It took quite long to start, we just started to receive orders 10 days ago. Florists wait till the last minute to order as they do not want to take any risks. In turn, the orders of the wholesalers are later as well."
And supplying roses has been quite a hassle for many importers over the last week. In the majority of European countries, Mother's Day was celebrated on May 13, so the demand for roses was high. However, many Kenyan growers could not meet the demand because their production was affected by heavy rains. The weather situation in Kenya has not changed that much and growers, including Black Tulip, are still dealing with rain. Fortunately, French Mother's Day falls a bit later, and combined with production planning, Black Tulip and Stephane have been able to fulfill all the orders.
French Mother's Day is an important day for MFresh. "Around 12-15 percent of our turnover is generated in the week before Mother's Day." After Sunday, it will be slow for some months with low production in Kenya and low demands from florists and wholesalers. At the same time, Mother's Day marks the end of the import season. "The end of October, in the run-up for Christmas, the import volumes will increase rapidly and again will remain high till the end of May."
MFresh
Stephane Maurice has worked for several years in a flower import company and established MFresh in 2015. He imports flowers directly from Kenya (from Black Tulip Group) to France (wholesalers). Over the last years, he sees his sales rising. "We see an increase in demand for high quality premium roses and spray roses. And as Black Tulip is specialized in growing high quality products, we can fulfill this demand with the best service."
