Royal FloraHolland’s newly appointed CEO Pieter Bootsma highlights 2025 as a critical year for the world’s largest floral trade hub, promising growers and buyers more clarity about where the cooperative aims to be in the future.
Bootsma is looking forward to the new year with optimism and confidence, driven by its aspiration to achieve growth. “We have written black figures in 2024, and we want to keep it that way,” he said in his New Year’s video message.
The CEO stressed that creating an environment where everyone feels involved and heard is key to growing and innovating successfully together from effective partnerships. “Therefore, from 2025, we will organise the development of our services, our platform and the contact with growers and buyers on this from two new pillars in our organisational structure. One pillar focuses entirely on value creation for growers (Grower Value Management) and the other focuses specifically on buyers (Buyer Partnership Development). This more customer-oriented organisational structure is one of the outcomes of our ‘Fit For Future’ trajectory designed to make Royal FloraHolland more efficient and purposeful.”
Bootsma, who succeeded Steven van Schilfgaarde as the auction’s new boss in November 2024, emphasised the need for more efficient and accurate order picking and the need to level out peaks in the distribution of cut flowers and potted plants.
Floriway, the cooperative’s transportation branch, is vital to Royal FloraHolland’s growth strategy for the coming 12 months. In 2023, it reported a less-than-anticipated turnover. The world’s largest floral trade hub wants to expand Floriday, its digital sales platform. The latter accounted for more than two billion euros in direct product sales in 2023. On average, 66 per cent (2022: 32 per cent) of direct trade happens through Floriday, which rose to 87 per cent by the end of 2023.
Moreover, Bootsma sees growth opportunities abroad, not specifying the cooperative’s international marketing objectives and policies. The bottom line, he says, is “Achieving a positive result based on cost efficiency but also growth opportunities in our income.”
Royal FloraHolland’s CEO also promised growers and buyers more clarity about the direction the cooperative is heading, the perks and challenges of Centralised Auctioning, and the possibilities of auctioning directly from the cut flower or plant nursery.
To conclude, Bootsma mentioned the need to replace, renovate, and retrofit the auction’s existing buildings and make them more sustainable.
In light of the cooperative’s Growing Green Together tagline, Bootsma underlines that horticultural entrepreneurs must embrace sustainability for long-term success because the industry is highly vulnerable to negative connotations towards what is often presumed to be poor flower farming practices.
Royal FloraHolland’s path to the future is not sprinkled with roses alone. “We see all sorts of things happening in our membership base. There is consolidation, There are members who turn their back on the cooperative, while we also see growers who would like to become a member but who cannot yet find their place in the cooperative.”
Therefore, Royal FloraHolland will embark on new forms of bonding, expand the membership packages, and also make a decision about the future of the volume discount.
Watch Pieter Bootsma, the new CEO of Royal FloraHolland’s New Year’s message below:
