German: Fair trade flowers booming business
Germany is number one on the list of countries where fair trade is seriously starting to take off. In total, the country’s consumers purchased €533 million worth of fair trade products. Coffee was the only category that managed to stay ahead of cut flowers, in terms of sales.
257 million fair trade stems were sold in 2012, marking a whopping increase of 173% relative to the year prior. Roses were by far the most important, making up no less than 95% of all the sales. Carnations and lilies make up the remainder.
The decision by Edeka Group – the largest German supermarket chain – to start selling fair trade flowers appears to play a significant role in the massive sales increase. Other businesses such as Lidl and the Metro group have been increasing their share of fair trade products as well, however.
Well known flower delivery service Fleurop also started offering a broad range of fair trade flowers as of last year, in cooperation with importer Omniflora.
TransFair is a German organization that seeks to promote and keeps tabs on the trade in various fair trade products.
Source: FloraNexus
