Gartenbau Greiving works intensively with Floriday. Jörn Greiving, the third generation of the family business, has high hopes for the platform. "Floriday has the potential to become the central hub for our international trade."
The connection between Gartenbau Greiving and Royal FloraHolland goes back a long way, says Jörn Greiving. "Royal FloraHolland is a familiar name in our family. My grandfather started our business in 1960, as a landscaper. A few years later, he met my grandmother, who started a flower shop. These businesses merged. At one point, my grandmother went flower and plant shopping in Aalsmeer. Where once we were customers, today we are suppliers."
Work experience in the Netherlands
Gartenbau Greiving is located in Wietmarschen, just over the German border, near Ommen. As the second generation, Jörn's father and uncle have been running the family business for over 30 years. The brothers gained work experience in the Netherlands, where they were introduced to monoculture: growing one crop on one piece of land. Greiving produces flowering houseplants and perennials and supplies mostly German supermarkets, garden centres, DIY stores and wholesalers. Veiling Rhein-Maas, the joint venture between Royal FloraHolland and the German marketing organisation Landgard, is also an important marketing channel.
International marketplace
As the youngest member of the family business, thirty-something Jörn is in charge of innovation. That includes working with Floriday. "I first heard about Floriday two or three years ago," says Jörn. "For more than a year now, we have been working with a carrier who makes daily trips to the Netherlands. Then it became interesting for us to start as a guest sender at Royal FloraHolland and work with Floriday. We really see Floriday as an international marketplace that offers access to many new markets. We have products that are widely available in the Netherlands, meaning there is a lot of competition in our home market. We focus mainly on Eastern Europe and Scandinavia
New way of doing business
For Greiving, working with Floriday is a new way of doing business. "We currently receive orders via phone, WhatsApp and email "Some send a pdf file, others an Excel file. Many customers are still using their own portals. For some, the prices include transport costs, for others they don't. Some include trays, others do not. At Floriday, all information is offered uniformly. This ensures transparency. Our buyers can see at a glance what the price includes. They have faster access to product information; and this is always correct. Anything that improves efficiency is welcome. Especially in these times when everything must happen faster and when it is becoming increasingly difficult to get staff, such as good buyers. Digitisation makes our industry more sustainable, to the extent that it actually ensures its survival.'
Transparency
Jörn appreciates Floriday's user-friendliness. "It's nice that I can access the platform anytime, anywhere; even when I'm on the road or on holiday. Besides, it works in a simple fashion; I can explain it to other people easily, without a manual or anything. I also think it's a good thing that you have to place pictures with products. This does cost us some work as growers, but it is transparent and gives a good impression of your products. It's especially nice for buyers. And if things work well on the buyer side, it works for us as growers too."
Persuading buyers
The challenge is to encourage even more buyers to work with Floriday. "Success depends on that. In Germany, many things are still done the traditional way. Sometimes there seems to be a fear of modern systems. In our growers' association Plusplants I am a Floriday ambassador. I help others get started, explaining how things work and what the benefits are. For example, that web shops and software packages can be easily connected to Floriday via an API connection. In this sense, it is good to see that Royal FloraHolland is working to increase the international buying power on the Floriday platform. In addition, as a growers' association, we have recently employed someone to make contact with customers, starting with the work we do through Floriday.
High expectations
Jörn has high future expectations: "In my opinion, Floriday has the potential to grow into an irreplaceable system , the central hub for our trade. Also, because the development of the platform is progressing based on the roadmap, with users working together to determine the development priorities based on our needs."
Points for improvement
What would Jörn himself want to improve about Floriday? "I have enough wishes, haha. For us, access to actual customs documents is important. If you didn't have to look up the input lines yourself every time, it would save a lot of time. I also hope that we can start collaborating with other growers to arrange transport in the best possible way. The fuller we can load containers - both on the way there and on the way back - the better it is for all of us. If something could be devised to address this, it would be great from an economic and sustainability point of view. And my absolute number one wish: to be able to work with tiered pricing, where you can indicate differences in price between one cart and multiple carts. Especially since we are far away from Aalsmeer and Naaldwijk that can make a big difference, but for now it still causes some confusion. I hope that this will be picked up soon!"