70 Days of Deals: partner in the spotlight Bromelia SpecialistFloréac is celebrating its 70th birthday. In order to honour this moment we gathered some of our long-standing partners to reflect on the joint development of our cooperation, across generations. To mark the occasion, you can also find their special celebration offer in our 70 Years – 70 Days of Deals promotion! After 10 weeks of availability, our celebration offering is coming to an end. We are more than happy to share, last but not least, the relating partner story of Bromelia Specialist!
40 years of successful collaboration with Floréac
Together with its regular growers, Bromelia Specialist strives for the most efficient and sustainable supply chain possible. A mindset they share with Floréac. “Our cooperation with the Floré family goes back a long time. A lot has changed in 40 years, but our values have remained the same: passion for plants, innovation and cooperation.“
What can you tell us about the pioneering period at the beginning of the cooperation with Floréac?
‘Geert Floré regularly visited our nursery. He would walk around all the products and, during the following weeks, had a good idea of what was there and what the possibilities were. He combined knowledge of the product and translated this directly to the customers in Switzerland and France in particular.
Whereas many export companies traditionally focused entirely on wholesale, Floréac started supplying high-end retail (supermarkets and garden centres) directly at an early stage.’
How many generations does this go back in the company’s history?
Siegfried Bunnik grew up among Bromeliads. Logical, father and grandfather Bunnik have been growing this tropical beauty since the 1970s.’ When my father switched from cucumbers to Bromeliads in the early 1970s, Floréac was one of our first customers. My father had a good relationship with Floréac and the Floré family for many years. Our sapling comes from Belgium and Floréac has been a good customer for years. As a little boy, I went along for a day’s visit to Belgium once or twice a year to visit our main supplier and customer. Always an impressive experience for me, out in the big greenhouses in Belgium, stopping on the way back home to buy delicious Belgian chocolate.
Good personal contact with suppliers and customers has been an important core value of Floréac from the beginning .”
Is there a anecdote you can tell about our collaboration?
’ At the time, Floréac came several times a week to load the purchased plants itself with its own trucks.
The plants were settled by invoice. Although direct invoicing is very common today, this was not in line with the agreements we had with the ‘VBA’ (Verenigde Bloemen veiling Aalsmeer) at the time.
Fresh out of school, but already responsible for sales at the time, I had to come to the chairman of the auction to justify this invoicing method to Floréac.
After explaining the relevance of our cooperation with Floréac and the fact that I then mentioned that I had to justify our family for the3rd time as the3rd generation on this issue to the auction, we came to good agreements that served all purposes.
Another did-you-know: the Bromeliad was discovered in the 18th century by Belgian trade travellers. They instantly fell in love with this beauty and took a few plants back to Europe. And the rest is history.’
How has the business relationship developed over the years?
From the first year that Floréac buys Bromeliads from us, the cooperation is very good and goes beyond just customer and supplier. We involve each other in our goals and challenges and try to strengthen each other in the process .
Many things have changed over the years. With us, with Floréac and the whole sector.
Working together and strengthening each other is in our DNA; where we once started as the Bunnik family supplying plants to the Floré family. 15 years ago, we started collaborating with other Bromelia growers and supplying them as Bromelia Specialist. From 1 January 2025, Bromelia Specialist will collaborate with the market leaders and specialists of the Anthurium, Spathiphyllum and Phalaenopsis product groups in a professional commercial organisation: Riza Growers
Besides the best plants at the right time, there are plenty of joint developments in the areas of sustainability, digitalisation, data, private label and the assortment. With this, we want to work even more closely and professionally with the Floréac team to make your customers even more successful.
Due to developments such as digitalisation, a lot has changed in the years of cooperation.
Yet a few things have remained unchanged : you still have strong product specialists: your colleague Lisette Scheffers has as much knowledge of our products as our own team and she still makes the best translation for your customers. She is rightly a true ‘Bromelia Specialist!’
