International Marketing - Foliage Case

1. One of the challenges for African flower and foliage producers is the need to ensure that the products reach the final consumers in good quality. Must they then produce and market their own products that are more tolerant to the stresses of long shipping or continue to produce traditional European flowers which are difficult and expensive to transport?

Answer: AsthearticlehasmentionedthatflowerusageisnotcommoninAfricancountries,thereforelessthan 1% of flower produced consumed by local market. Hence, flower industry in African countries becomes buyer- driven commodity which means the buyer countries in European Union create demand and specification of the cut flower and foliage to be complied with by producer countries.

African countries are the main production field of flower for European countries for reason that it can provide good climate, strategic location and cheap labor, lots of demand flowed into African countries create huge amount of foreign exchange as can be seen in Ethiopia that flower accounted for 80% of horticultural export and in Kenya where the sector become fastest growing economically.

In my opinion, flower industry plays important role in economic growth of African countries, so they should continue to product traditional European flower to retain their country income. On the other way, the government should be more supportive to this industry by investing to transportation technology and also undertaking research on genetic modification to make flower become more tolerant to long shipping in corporation with European grower.

2. What type of upgrading can producers in Africa conveniently adopt to ensure increased recognition and participation in the floriculture chain?

Answer: As producers, to create and retain recognition among buyer countries, they should first maintain their strength of being superior in geographic suitability by maintaining its standard quality to meet specification requirement of importing countries.

Marketing strategy is also crucial to keep awareness of the brand among consumer countries. Since each farm/ producer has unique flower species grown in their farm which is different between each other as can be seen at MDK Ghana that exclusively grows Monstera, Philodendron, Anthurium and the true exotic species called “Heliconia”, while most farm in Ethiopia grow roses. Therefore, each producer can market themselves as unique entity. When each farm grows the unique species, it will be specialized in that species, as a result, it can maintain its standard easier