Kenya flower growers step up branding

Local flower producers have stepped up the branding of their produce, raising the stakes in their long running bid to wrestle control of the multi-million export industry from the financially muscled Dutch auctions.

Kenya Flower Council CEO Jane Ngige said a proportion of the country’s exports getting to the market directly has risen sharply to between 40 and 50 per cent, significantly lowering the influence of middlemen in the value chain.

“Branding is taking place at farms in every small way and most of our flowers are now getting to the final consumer in clearly marked bouquets as opposed to bunches sealed in boxes,” Mrs Ngige said on Friday.

Kenya has intensified the search for cheaper alternatives for getting their fresh produce to the customer in the EU market in the face of shrinking demand.

World market

Initially, nearly all the country’s flower exports found their way into the world market via the Amsterdam auctions since the Dutch introduced flower farming in the country in early 1980s.

Flower industry players say lumping their products together with Netherland’s produce at the Dutch auctions have robbed them of their unique identity in the crowded Sh320 billion ($40 billion) global flower market that is supplied by 80 countries.

Usually, flowers gathered from all over the world by the auctions are repackaged and labelled for sale as Dutch produce.

Going by global statistics, Netherlands accounts for 54 per cent of the global flower supply followed by Colombia (16 per cent), Kenya (six per cent), Ecuador (six per cent) and the remaining 17 per cent shared by the remaining 76 producers.

“Our flowers are invariably very different. Unlike the South Americans which export large roses ours are intermediate and the small heads.” said Ms Ngige.

The branding drive seeks to leverage the unique qualities of Kenya’s naturally nurtured flowers in the hope of creating direct linkages to new markets such as US, Russia, Japan and Middle East.

In an earlier interview, Lake Naivasha Growers Group Chairman Peter Szapary said high cost and cumbersome logistics involved in establishing direct linkages to overseas market has made sales through the Dutch auctions attractive for the industry which is dominated still dominated by small scale operators.

In the American market where the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa) has opened up a duty-free-quota free trade relations, players say their small size operations have undermined their ability to cope with the large sized orders .

While the Kenya Flower Council maintains that a sizeable number of orders are now coming via the internet, the decision by Delta Airlines to suspend its plan to introduce a direct flight to US has dashed hopes of growing American market share through direct sales.

Even in EU which account for more than 70 per cent of the country’s exports, large supermarkets such as Tesco’s prefer to obtain Kenyan flowers through auctions because of the ability to supply conveniently in bulk as opposed to direct sales.

Of the 200 flower growers in the country, the campaign to brand their flowers and market them directly in the oversees market comes as a tall order as only three of them – Oserian Development Company, Finlay’s and Homegrown (K) ltd have the capacity to rollout the export infrastructure.

The three large farms collectively account for about 40 per cent of Kenyan flower export.

A recent report conducted by the Eastern and Southern Africa Management Institute on Value chain indicates that farms spent 8 per cent of their costs in auctions fees, nearly the same as the 10 per cent spent on labour.

On the other hand, direct sales mean the firms spend 34 per cent of their operation costs to cover airfreight and clearing closes and another 2.8 per cent in packaging expenses.

“Going forward, we foresee a lot of mergers and automation in future to reduce the cost of doing business within the industry,” Mr Oswald Magwenzi, investment officer at the international Finance Corporation (IFC) told floriculture industry forum held in Nairobi last week