Mike van den Eijkel

The coronavirus had a major impact on the flower industry. Images of discarded flowers remain fresh in our minds. Fortunately, sales of flowers and plants picked up fairly quickly, allowing us to offer our customers a beautiful product range once again. However, things didn’t fully return to normal. Some products remained scarce, and prices were generally higher than before. We spoke with Mike van den Eijkel, our head buyer of cut flowers, to explain the reasons behind these changes.

There is a lot of discussion about the higher prices of some flowers and plants, what can you tell us about this?

The price of our products is mainly determined by supply and demand. And that has changed quite a bit in recent times. When the virus broke out, there was a lot of supply that was largely unsold. So, growers destroyed certain varieties and no longer planted them due to insufficient returns. The idea was to save costs.

When they wanted to start up again, they had problems getting hold of certain cuttings and/or crops. Some cuttings, for example, are grown in Africa and could not be easily transported to Europe because most air freight was cancelled. Now the demand for flowers and plants is high, and significantly higher in some countries. This means that demand is now greater than the supply, and so the prices of some flowers are higher than normal.

When do you expect the supply to be back on track again?

Growers are busy planting again. The time it will take before the supply is back to normal varies according to product. I expect the supply to be complete and stable again within eight to twelve weeks.

As far as imported products are concerned, it's harder to predict how long this will take. It depends on the transport. Flight transport is returning to normal, but it is still a limiting factor and we cannot rely on it 100% yet.

And when do you expect 'normal' pricing again?

I think prices will be back to normal when all growers have and can deliver a stable supply again. But because we cannot yet rely 100% on flight transport, this is still uncertain. When imports lag behind this leads to less supply and higher prices.

How does our purchasing department deal with this situation?

Our buyers are always looking to find opportunites and do their utmost to offer an attractive and broad product range for our customers. Customers can always send us a request for specific products. We have excellent relationships with suppliers and growers and are always happy to help our customers! We stay in close contact with suppliers and growers so that we have a good idea of the (expected) availability of products.