Images: © Floréac / © www.maplantemonbonheur.fr / © unsplash / © Hortibreed / © Fikonaa
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Dear customer,
Now that everyone has unwrapped their presents, digested their Christmas dinners and maybe even broken their New Year’s resolutions already, the festive period is officially behind us. As for us, we’re storming into 2019 full of enthusiasm with a new tradition: ‘Best of Belgium’. Our desk calendar and online store will feature a Belgian grower and its products every month this year. The Fikona nursery, with its large green plants, is first in line. Along with colourful azaleas - you can find out all about azalea breeder Hortinno later on - these plants take centre stage in the four themes we bring you in this issue. First in line are the ‘Pattern Plants’. In a myriad of shapes, structures and colours, they spark off a dynamic vibe that really boosts your energy levels. The ‘Why.te’ theme continues to stir up a sense of springtime. After all, white flowers symbolise a new start. Another trend is ‘Plants in Baskets’. Create your own unique style with both plants and baskets in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. Last but not least, those of you who love playful colours will absolutely adore ‘Pastels are the New Neutrals’. The combination of soft tints with energetic patterns is infectious and will well and truly wake us up from hibernation.
Enjoy the magazine and all the great photos! PS You will find all the themes and accompanying POS material at our online store: www.floreac.shop/.
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theme
Plants in Baskets Surely you’ve noticed: plants in baskets are the next big thing, and that means all kinds of shapes, sizes and materials. Do you know what makes them so great? They suit every interior. We have created a wide range of green plants in contemporary baskets.
Please visit our webshop for the full range of this theme.
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h igh l ighte d prod u c ts
EX CLU S FLO AT IVELY RÉ AC
CRASSU-DI04A
GPMVMX-MA01A
EX CLU S FLO AT IVELY RÉ AC
SPATHI-DI04A Please visit our webshop for the full range of this theme.
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supplier in the spotlight
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supplier in the spotlight
Hortinno: Enjoy Xtra Long Flowering plants IN T E RV IEW WI T H ST E FA N L A R I D O N , T H E M A NAGER O F H O RTI BREED
Hi Stefan, can you tell us exactly what Hortibreed and Hortinno stand for? Hortinno stands for ‘horticulture innovation’ and is the consumer quality label of the company Hortibreed, which is active in the world of flowering plants. Hortinno is an azalea, japonica and rhododendron specialist. Every year some 50,000 plants are sown and appraised. We only keep the best ones. For many years, Hortinno has been putting the most innovative and
high-quality varieties on the market: all of them are plants that appeal to the imagination. So what kind of plant does Hortinno have to offer? The Hortinno range includes a Hortinno Home selection and a Garden selection. The Home selection currently consists of a series of azaleas for indoor use (which includes six collections: Christine, Lady Violet, Classic, Spring, Lime and Kinku Saku) and then there
is the Garden selection, with evergreen japonica and two rhododendrons (Rhodo XXL and Red Devil) for outdoors. What benefits do Hortinno Home azaleas offer the consumer and why should you buy a Hortinno? The special thing about Hortinno plants, first and foremost, is their extra-long flowering time. Every Hortinno blooms for at least seven to ten weeks, and some species for even longer. That’s the reason for our tag
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line, ‘Enjoy Xtra Long Flowering plants’, that we introduced this year. We also write ‘Flowers for 50 days’ on the label to draw the consumer’s attention to this. And then you have the intense, shiny green leaves and the very unique structure of the flowers. Last but not least, most Hortinno species hardly shed any brown sepals (i.e. they have the Pure label), which makes them pleasant to care for. And you are also making a distinction between four consumer styles starting this year? That’s right. We are keeping our collection names for B2B sales, but we have introduced four B2B2C style categories, partly to appeal more specifically to the consumer. Mood and interior experience are becoming very important, along with the storytelling that accompanies the plants, certainly on social media. There is the ‘Authentic’ category, where it all began. That’s where we find the Christines, including the well-known Christine Matton. Christines look great in any living 8
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room and you can already buy them in November rather than December. So Christines are now available four weeks earlier, which is a great benefit for retail. Whenever you buy a Christine, it is ideal for giving your house a splash of colour during the festive period. In the Retro category, the Classic collection is a must-have. Retro is back in style today, and a Classic Hortinno looks great in a retro interior with bright wall colours, for example. It’s an ideal addition to your home in the new year. The Classic series blooms for at least eight weeks, so it is another very rewarding Hortinno.
Then we have the Dynamic style with the spring collection: the Noralinde, with its fresh colour palette, is a highlight here. Sales of this azalea are still growing, and it has the Pure label, which means it doesn’t make a mess in the consumer’s home. That is very important to us at Hortibreed anyway in the plants we breed. The fourth and final category is the Vintage style, aimed at the slightly younger modern consumer. It includes the Lime collection. Lime has flowers in a unique, leaf green colour, which means these species fit perfectly into the trend for green houseplants. These Hortinnos
ID Company Hortibreed Location Lochristi - Belgium Sur face ar ea 16 ha Number of pl ants 1.500.000 Hortinno
HOME & GARDEN A ctive Worldwide
supplier in the spotlight are the ideal way to follow the green houseplant trend and bring a splash of colour into the house at the same time. The flower stays in the candle stage for a very long time before the blooms fully emerge. In general, the Lime series are plants with very long flowering periods that really do justice to the Hortinno Home slogan, ‘Enjoy Xtra Long Flowering plants’. Great! But can you plant them outdoors after they have been living indoors? People often ask that, and it is a point for breeders to take note of in future. At present the Home selection is for indoors, as the name suggests. But we do have the evergreen japonica in six different colours specifically for outdoors. This japonica stays green in the winter - it retains its leaves well - and is fairly hardy. It is a response to the new trend for long-lasting perennial plants on a terrace, for example, but of course the great advantage is
that you can plant them in a flowerbed later. They also flower for longer than standard japonicas, because we have crossed them with aspects of the azalea indica. You also see that in the magnificent flowers. And then there are the lovely rhododendrons in the Garden range... That’s right. The XXL Rhodo plant doesn’t so much owe its name to its height or breadth or anything like that: XXL refers to its extra-large flowers, which are bigger than your fists. And what is really unique is that it has beautiful, bicolour flowers. There is the Red Devil as well: the structure of the flowers and the colour combination really do remind you of the Belgian football team. How can you recognise Hortinnos in the shops? You can recognise Hortinno plants by their blue pots, and even better by the triangular ticket that provides all the information you need for their upkeep and a useful QR code that takes you to the Hortinno website for answers to all your questions. And finally, what are the most important developments that Hortinno is working on for the future? Next year will be 20 years since Hortinno started out with Christine Matton. Besides a few innovations, we will start rolling our action plans for the coming years. Sustainability will become very important in the future, and we also need to raise awareness among consumers of the fact that our Hortinnos are bred locally in Belgium (near Ghent) with great craftsmanship. ‘Made in Belgium’ always goes down well! Our breeding programme also always tries to anticipate future trends, such as colour trends. The Lime collection is well on track to respond to ‘dusty pink’ as a colour trend from 2019-2020 onwards. We expect the trend for flowering plants to return within the next few years, which means Hortinno needs to be ready with the next generation: different species and flower structures as well as very pure plants. These plants will also take away some of the stress that consumers face, such as having to water the plants. We are also looking into how we can respond commercially to increasing urbanisation and smaller homes, as well as coming up with great extensions to our garden range. f l o r e a c ma ga zi n e
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theme
Pattern Plants Delicate veins, cheerful spots or a simple silhouette: plants with a pattern are an absolute must-have. The natural shapes, structures and colours make every single one of them special. There is a wide range of species in this theme. Please visit our webshop for the full range of this theme.
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h igh l ighte d prod u c ts
NEW
BERERU-12A
CAMBMX-SPBG03A
Please visit our website for the full range of this theme.
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theme
Why.te Now the winter is nearly over, everyone is desperate for more light. Why.te makes it feel as though spring is just around the corner. Green and white houseplants in trendy outer pots create a lively atmosphere and really make it feel like spring. From jasmine to stephanotis: the possibilities are endless. Please visit our webshop for the full range of this theme.
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h igh l ighte d prod u c ts
STEPHA-SP6B9/10A
PHALKOWI-SP41A
SPATHI-SP02A
Please visit our website for the full range of this theme.
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supplier in the spotlight
Fikona, a family business from Lier, is the brainchild of married couple Koen Peeters and Nancy Peers. It has sworn by perfection since 1992. As you probably know, the Ficus ReginaÂŽ sets the standard in the sector. However the young, dynamic team are taking things another step further: when it comes to digitisation and sustainability, they refuse to compromise.
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supplier in the spotlight
Fikona is preparing the ficus for the future Koen, the general advisor and cultivation specialist, and Nancy, who is in charge of the finances, are supported by Yorick Peeters (purchasing & HR), Nick Lebegge (cultivation) and Kristof Michiels (sales). Their goal is to achieve perfection in green plants. Slow cultivation “Fikona specialises in what we call ‘slow cultivation’”, Kristof explains. “That means the plants get all the time they need to acclimatise. The ficus plants are imported in shipping containers, losing a lot of their leaves in the process. Slow cultivation gives the plants time to produce new leaves in our climate.
That means that they will also lose fewer leaves in the end consumers’ homes. We separate out our chamaedorea and musa palms once they have almost reached the height we need. That gives them more breathing space, so they can develop thicker stems and denser foliage.” Digital ficus So plants get all the time they need at Fikona. But the company itself wants to make rapid progress. The fact that most of the team are people in their twenties who grew up with online apps means that digitisation has become a focal point.
Kristof tells us more: “We are very data-oriented and try to express everything in figures. Besides enabling us to learn from our mistakes, that allows us to direct sales of our products better. For example, we see right away which plants end up where, which enables us to adjust our range. What’s more, it helps us plan more efficiently as well: by preparing for recurrent annual orders, for example.” Magical 100% Data is also an important asset for Fikona when it comes to sustainability. “We are a ‘founding father’ at Benefits of Nature, an initiative for f l o r e a c ma ga zi n e
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supplier in the spotlight
“From data management to sustainability and tips for the consumer: our goal is to remove stress for customers wherever possible and to aim for maximum satisfaction.”
making tens of millions of people’s homes and surroundings prettier, healthier and more attractive. The key to that is calculating the environmental impact of each of our products. That teaches us what action we can take to do better.” The effect of this is making itself felt at Fikona: everything from water consumption to packaging is optimised to be as sustainable as possible. “All our water comes from our pond, and we filter and re-use it: we don’t discharge any waste water. Our cultivation method itself is hybrid, which means we only use chemicals where there is no alternative. We are continuing to search for natural remedies for common diseases, so that we can become 100% organic in the long run. And all our packaging is already 99% recyclable at present. We are still aiming for that magical 100%.” Stability and removing stress All these efforts have made Fikona plants extremely popular. Order volumes are getting bigger and bigger. To keep up with demand, the company is undergoing a significant expansion. “We’re going from 30,000 to 50,000 m2. With that much more space, we will be able to organise 16
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ID
Company Fikona Location Lier (Belgium) Sur face ar ea 50,000 ha Number of pl ants ±50,000 ficus plants
& ±4,000,000 chamaedorea Staff 10-20 depending on how busy the season is A ctive In Europe
things so that we can always deliver plants quickly. We are also investing in the automation of our main cultivation process.” So what is Fikona’s mission? To remove stress for customers wherever possible. And that applies all the way to the consumer. “People who buy a ficus with a Regina label can contact us directly for help with specific issues, for example. The website www.mynewplant.be is also packed with tips and tricks for pampering your new, green housemate.”
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theme
Pastels are the New Neutrals Pastels are right back in fashion - not that they ever went away. Easily replaceable home accessories like cushions and blankets are the ideal way to bring these soft tints into the home. Houseplants in pastelcoloured outer pots provide the finishing touch. This sunny collection combines candy-coloured patterns with self-assured tones. Please visit our webshop for the full range of this theme.
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h igh l ighte d prod u c ts
BROMRZ-ยงSP12A
ORCHCAS-SP05TA1A
PHALWI-SP55TA2A
Please visit our website for the full range of this theme.
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Place an order for at least ÂŁ500 per theme and receive a festive banner.
FlorĂŠac nv Beerveldse Baan 4 9080 Lochristi Belgium T +32 9 353 53 53 F +32 9 355 52 34 info@floreac.com www.floreac.com
order by webshop : fax : telephone :
www.floreac.shop +32 9 355 52 34 +32 9 353 53 53
or contact your account manager