Going Dutch

Going Dutch

Horti Fair is a big deal for the international floriculture industry, so big that four days in the grip of the seemingly unending spectacle that Holland’s Horti Fair presents leaves one awed, slaphappy and more than a little footsore.

Horti Fair is big in terms of industry importance, as well. With such a strong Dutch strain in the floriculture industry on every continent on the planet (including ours), many growers make what has become almost an annual commercial pilgrimage to Amsterdam to view the latest, best and brightest new technologies and marketing tools available. This year’s show attracted just shy of 50,000 visitors from more than 110 countries, and featured 1,005 exhibiting companies from 51 countries around the globe, all vying for their piece of the growing international market for horticultural products.

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Retail Forward

The design was split into four “houses,” the newest of which was the House of Retail, a showplace for products for large horticultural buyers. Ten times larger than last year’s showcase, the House of Retail emphasized the global floricultural reality that growers and retailers cannot allow their plants, no matter how beautiful, to sell themselves any longer. 

Next Year

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The International Horti Fair is making a move to mid-October in 2007, for a couple key reasons. The first is that the time period surrounding All Saints Day is especially busy in the Dutch floriculture industry (not to mention that the holiday is observed in many parts of Holland). Also, many pepper and other greenhouse vegetable crops are ready for rotation at this time of the year. Finally, research has shown that a mid-October date will provide growers with the earliest possible opportunity for planning and executing investments in the year to come. This move is expected to increase the overall amount of business conducted, which is itself already a staggering amount. If you’ve got some business to take care of, the next Horti Fair will be held at the Amsterdam RAI Center from Tuesday, Oct. 9 to Friday, Oct. 12, 2007. See you there!

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