More and more roses are now coming from production areas
located near the equator such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda
in Africa and Ecuador and Colombia in South America.
This development is progressing at the expense of rose production in northwestern Europe, where high energy prices and labour costs are having a negative impact on production. In addition, supermarkets want a specific type of rose that is cheap to produce and Africa has become a very important supplier of this rose.
However, these developments do not mean that rose production will disappear in Europe. Many growers have overcome the rising costs and have started to produce varieties that do not thrive in Africa but for which there is plenty of demand on the European market. This fact, combined with the excellent quality produced by the European growers, means that there is still a bright future ahead for rose production in Europe.
The competition from Ecuador and Colombia is less of a problem for European growers as these countries are more specifically geared to the North American market. This market has become less interesting for European flower merchants in the past 15 years due to the transport costs and the rate of exchange between the Euro and the U.S. dollar. On top of this, growers in Colombia and Ecuador grow product that is attuned to the taste of the American consumer, which differs from that of the European consumer.
–Flower Council of Holland
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