The end of May welcomed the return of the International Flower Trade Expo to Kenya. IFTEX is the Nairobi based show which welcomes buyers from around the world to come and meet growers, suppliers, logistic agents and more, all in one place. It’s also the perfect place for growers and their customers to see the breeders’ ranges and what is new in the industry.
We find it incredibly useful, not only as a meeting place with our customers, but also with our growers. It’s a way of introducing our customers to the growers and seeing lots of ‘farms’ in one day – without the hours of driving in between!
There were many beautiful stands this year and everyone was really showcasing the very best of Kenyan Flowers, and everything from Roses to Grasses, Delphiniums to Herbs. With a huge focus on sea freight and sustainability, this year’s conference was on just that. How can we drive the market to combat the rising air freight rates, the reduced capacity and to be more sustainable?
For us, alongside the above, we chose IFTEX as the perfect moment to show off our new brighter branding, set beautifully amongst the new photographs from some of our key summer flower growers. We had a stand in hall D, which presented us with a constant flow of visitors – some new and many old faces. Back by popular demand was our ‘flower wall’ – a set of shelves with small posy vases showcasing at least one stem of every type of crop we have shipped over the past six months- 100% Kenyan grown flowers.
For those of you that visited our stand/can see in the pictures above, you will spot a little Fruit, Veg and potted plants as well as cut flowers in amongst our display. These belong to Lauren International, with whom we shared a stand with this year. We work closely with Lauren to market our product into the Middle Eastern market but they themselves deal in a much wider range of products. We can happily put any interested parties in touch.
After 3 days of meeting, greeting and catching up on all things floral we tidied up the stand and all agreed it was a resounding success and we are very much looking forward to the next year.
