The florist’s holiday

The Ukrainian flower industry celebrates its 10th anniversary. The capital’s International Exhibit Center will host its fifth International Specialized Exhibit for the flower business, gardening, landscape design. The flora-study Flowers&HorTech Ukraine 2010 was also held there. Around 150 companies from 15 countries presented their vegetable production. In recent years Flowers&HorTech Ukraine has consolidated its position as leading exhibit company in the “business to business” format for the entire floriculture and horticulture sectors in Ukraine.

It is, above all, the main meeting place for cultivators of flowers and pot plants with directors of flower shops, florist salons, importers, and wholesale flower and ornamental plant companies.

In the opinion of Berco Stukje, general director of the company Exhibitions BV (from the Netherlands), and at the same time a co-organizer of the exhibit, Ukraine’s big population is attractive for foreign investors from the flower industry. The president of the Union of Ukrainian florists and the organizer of the exhibit Iryna Slobodianiuk presented the official statistics, according to which roses the favorite flower of Ukrainians, making up 70 percent of the market. Under favorable weather conditions, 3.5 home roses per resident are grown each year. Carnations took the second place, while chrysanthemums were third. Specialists consider the fact that Ukrainians mostly buy bouquets for holidays (40 percent of annual consumption falls on March 8) to be the main obstacle for the development of flower business.

The peculiarity of the Ukrainian flower industry lies in the fact that during the period of considerable demand (from January 14 to March 8), domestic production is catastrophically insufficient due to the climate. Currently, all the flower market participants are striving to regain the levels of sales from before the crisis. It should be pointed out that the development of the flower industry is obstructed by the absolute indifference of the state. Unlike other kinds of business, florists are not given any privileges. The domestic flower business is experiencing difficult times; however, according to western experts, Ukraine may soon rise up and become a considerable exporter of flowers.