A rosy Valentine's Day for flower sellers as prices reach decade high

As India celebrated Valentine's day, the Indian floriculture industry flourished, with prices of roses reaching a decade high.

On Valentine's Day, a bunch of 20 flowers was sold for Rs 600, with each long stem rose retailing at Rs 30, double the average price. Although India was an export-oriented market for flowers, it is yet to recover from COVID losses. However, some of the losses were compensated in the domestic market during this spring season.

"Five years ago, the average price for roses was Rs 3 per stick in the wholesale market, which retailed at Rs 6-8. Now the average price is Rs 15, which is being sold up to Rs 35 during the festivity," said Shravan Kamle, floriculture manager at Rise and Shine.

The industry says that prices are at a decade high in the domestic market, and will remain consistent this year. This is due to the pent up demand of the last two years that is catching up in 2022.

"Demand was at an all-time low during COVID-19 second wave at 5-10 per cent. Companies had to pause 60 per cent of their projects due to lack of demand, and no major plantations were done for two years. As normalcy is restored, the boom in the market is due to the increase in demand, as flower production has fallen," said Kamle.

The Indian floriculture industry has made huge profits by exporting long-stemmed roses, known as the best in the world, to UK, US, Netherlands, and Dubai, to name a few. The market was projected to reach Rs 47,200 crore by 2024, but the industry says it will take longer to achieve this goal due to setbacks faced during the pandemic.

In December 2020, India exported 68,160 kg of roses to the world, which declined by 10 per cent to 60,960 kg in December 2021, according to data available with the Commerce Ministry.

During April-December 2021, India witnessed a marginal rise of 13 per cent in rose exports to 4,46,320 kgs from 3,92,990 kgs the year-ago period.

But for rose exporters, the situation seems grim compared to the domestic sellers.

Losses in the last two years will take a long time to offset and will be dependent on normalcy being restored in international market and flight services.

"With every flight cancellation, we lost Rs 1-2 lakh on each consignment in the last two years," said Francis Ruban, a rose exporter from Madurai.  In addition, freight charges have tripled during COVID-19.

"The freight charges pre-pandemic were up to Rs 60-Rs 150/kg, and now we have to pay Rs 200 per kg to the airlines, and Rs 400 to 500/kg for European destinations. We don't have local distribution chain, so doing business domestically is a challenge," Ruban added.