By Neena Bhandari, IANS,
Sydney : More and more Australians may soon be expressing their enduring love with roses from India as a delegation heads to Bangalore to facilitate a joint venture between India’s largest producer of fresh cut roses, Tanflora, and Australia’s largest provider of floral bouquets, The Lynch Group.
“The aim is to increase the market shares of Indian roses in Australia and make them more affordable and accessible”, Director of Sydney-based Roses Galore, M.A. Khan, who first introduced Indian flowers to Australia in 1996 and is helping to facilitate the joint venture, told IANS.
Tanflora is preparing to export 10 million roses all over the world, including Australia, come Valentine’s Day 2009. In recent years, there has been a growing demand for Indian producers to meet the Australian flower industry requirements.
Every day, roses, gerberas, lilies, carnations and other fresh flowers from India are sold at Australia’s largest trading market for fresh flowers, the Flemington markets in Sydney.
The Moorebank-based Lynch Group, the dominant suppliers of fresh flowers to the Australian wholesale market, recently launched Tanflora’s new premier red rose variety named ‘Tajmahal, Symbol of Love’, in Sydney.
“The Tajmahal variety will be available in the retail market later this month,” informs Khan, who migrated to Australia in 1986 from Hyderabad and is one of the largest importers of fresh flowers from India.
“This exclusive rose variety, with its unique colour, shape, vase life, stem length and overall vigour, for which Tanflora holds world rights, has been received with great enthusiasm by local buyers,” said Khan, who is also one of the 25 growers at Tanflora’s 50 hectare facility and has been closely linked with the formation of the company.
A joint venture between the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (TIDCO) and the Agricultural & Processed Food Products Development Authority (APEDA), Tanflora floriculture facility is based in Hosur (Tamil Nadu) with an annual production capacity of 70 million roses.
In May, a memorandum of understanding was signed between TIDCO, Tanflora and the Lynch Group on strengthening ties and introduction of value added products in the rapidly growing Indian and Australian markets.
Tanflora, which is among the top five rose growers of the world, is hoping to reach the top spot with a proposed expansion of an additional 300 hectares in the next five years and boosting production to a million stems per month.