Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world. To give an impression of its size. The state with the highest population, São Paulo, alone, is six times larger than the Netherlands. Despite the enormous size of the country, the production and market for plants and flowers have been concentrated in the southern and south-eastern regions for a long time. Only in recent years, this has started to change. More and more new production areas and markets are emerging.
For the Brazilian floriculture sector, these new markets are still a challenge. The distances from the existing production centres are long, transport costs are high and there isn’t enough demand yet for large-scale regional production.
Our cooperative Veiling Holambra is trying to figure out how to tackle these problems. We want to set up logistic hubs in strategic locations across the country, so that we can increase the supply frequency to customers and decrease transport costs.
We also want to ensure we deliver flowers of better quality. As Brazil is a tropical country, the cold chain is of great importance for the quality of plants and flowers. Finally, the digitalisation of the entire chain will make the customers’ lives easier. They’ll be able to purchase remotely and choose where they want to load. At the cooperative’s head office or at a hub that’s closer to their own market.
Something we often hear at our annual flower fairs in Holambra is that people like our flowers. They want to buy them, but they can’t see how they’d be able to get them to their city. In a more and more connected world, information is spread across all markets faster every day.
Our challenge is to keep up with this speed and find the best way to distribute our flowers across all markets.
Jean Ferreira
Grower of pot plants Flora Beijo
Click here to read more blogs from Jean
