Dried flowers pack a punch

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: Making dried flowers and arranging them into bouquets with other natural items like wild fruits, grasses, twigs and stems is a great hobby or small business. But the same procedure when ramped up into a large-scale operation can become a booming export business. Dried flowers and such items can be turned into bouquets, home decorations, festive decorations, collages, greeting cards and even pot-pourrie.

Global buyers like Walmart, IKEA, Target and Next want volumes and quick supplies. Ask companies like Ramesh Flowers Pvt Ltd of Tuticorin. Ramesh Flowers has been doing this for the past 10 years and has seen its export turnover grow every year.

According to the managing director of this 100% export house, Mahendra Raj Singwi, sales or export earnings jumped to Rs 57 crore in 2004-05 over 2003-04’s Rs 44 crore, which itself was higher by Rs 10 crore over the figure for 2002-03.

This apart, the company has stocks of Rs 23 crore as on March 2004-05. Mr Singwi says, “We do not export our entire production, since we keep a ready stock of at least 33% for emergency supplies.”

Mr Singwi says, “Production may be affected by drought or flood, so we keep some stocks ready for meeting stringent delivery schedules.” The global market is expanding every year, but India’s share is only 2% or $15 billion of the total of $750 billion.

Earlier, the main consumers were the US and European countries like the UK, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Denmark and Czechoslovakia. Now, dried flowers also go to new markets like South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Mexico and West Asia.

On the other hand, very few manufacturers or exporters take interest in this market even though India has a huge diversity of flowers, ferns, leaves, grasses and agricultural products.

The dried-flower industry is growing slowly, with the principal export houses or processing units concentrated in Tuticorin, Chennai and Kolkata. Mr Singwi says a part of India’s exports still consists of dried flowers, plant materials and other materials that are sent to manufacturers of bouquets and other decoratives in the US and Europe.