First and foremost: Floréac, even more than before, wants to take a leading role. Why especially now? Because the industry is at a pivotal moment. Certification is increasingly becoming the rule rather than a guideline. And on that front, we still have a long way to go. But it can be done. Just look at the Netherlands. There, ornamental plant cultivation today is close to 90% responsible production and trade. We too have to move in that direction.
“We want to bring Belgian growers to close the gap with the Netherlands. This is because we envisage a strong future for floriculture from Floréac. We want to guide our growers in this in the best possible way,” said Pieter Van De Velde, purchasing manager at Floréac.
And that is why Floréac is joining forces with MPS. Why is this good news for the entire Belgian floriculture sector? Because from now on, we can count on two representatives in Belgium: Bart Kersschot and Catarina Tojal. With tons of experience on their books, they will guide you as a grower through the certification process.
Everyone on board towards 90% responsible production and trade
One of the five pillars of our strategy for the coming years is a better world. A term that covers many cargoes and includes many initiatives. Such as our membership of FSI2025. Within that membership, we engage in three areas:
90% responsible production and trade. Minimum, that’s where the bar lies for us from now on. To make everything measurable and verifiable, the sustainable sourcing scan has developed a measuring instrument that groups together a number of certificates. This measuring tool will become our compass for our supplier choices in the future. To achieve this objective, the collaboration with MPS to guide growers through the certification process is indispensable.
Why is this environmental certification so important for us and for you as a grower?
- Sufficient certification will become a licence to sell in the future, see also our latest magazine . Certification is no longer a choice or a trophy on the wall. It will become a condition for selling your plants to certain customers.
- In a certification process, you learn about your own company. We too still experience this every year during the preparation for the audits and the audit itself.
- Retailers often make decisions overnight. We as retailers and you as growers don’t have that time to meet that demand. So be prepared.
- As a sector, we are regularly under fire: nitrogen, energy consumption, water use, chemicals, peat and so on. It remains necessary to invest in a positive perception. Even more than ever, we need to take steps towards a more sustainable future.
- Certification requires a more data-driven (‘data-driven’) operation. Data-driven working is the way of the future.
In short, we have no other choice.
“Yes but, we were certified, and no one asked. Besides, when it came down to it, the cheapest was always chosen.”
This line of argument no longer holds. As of today, we are very clear on this. We want to get to that 90% sustainable procurement and we will also base our supplier selection on this in the future.
Strong future for Belgian ornamental plant cultivation
Together with Bart Kersschot and Catarina Tojal, we are taking up the gauntlet to pull Belgium’s ornamental plant cultivation along and are going for that 90% by 2025. We hope that many of you will go along with this. It does not matter whether you do a lot or little business with Floréac. We are convinced that it matters to everyone.
And this is just the beginning. In the future, we will put our backs into any initiative that helps move Belgian ornamental horticulture forward. Forward together.