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Indian shoppers, specially the urban are getting conditioned to the ease of shopping at well equipped retail chains – Supermarkets. Yet one thing still missing from the shelves are fresh flowers. The Indian floriculture industry valued at ₹180 billion remains largely unorganised due to the short life of the produce.
La Fleur, a Pune based, start-up claiming to be the first-of-its-kind, launched in February provides professionally hand-crafted bouquets at supermarkets in Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and now Hyderabad. Entrepreneur and CEO at La Fleur, Hariharan Subramanian’s roses have been blossoming in the houses of UK citizens for two decades now as part of MSAMB Flower export facility located in Talegaon, Pune.
With an initial investment of roughly ₹6 crores and logistics infra of the parent company, La Fleur expects a revenue of ₹15.6 crores for FY20 said Hariharan in an interview with Business Line . Procuring a range of Roses, Carnations, Asiatic and Oriental Lilies, Orchids, Blue Daisies, Gypsophila and Gerberas directly from local cultivators, bouquets are prepared by teams trained by Jo Moody, UK based Florist and Designer at La Fleur.
“La Fleur bouquets come with exclusive ‘Flower Food’ which keeps the water clear and increase the strength of the flowers enhancing consumer experience. The bouquets are packaged with eco-friendly materials instead of plastic” added Subramanian. This start up hopes to provide growers with long term sustainability and consumers with alternatives from street vendors and florist shops.
In a revenue sharing agreement with supermarkets such a Godrej Natures Basket, Ratnadeep and Spar Hypermarket, bouquets are sold at 70 locations by La Fleur executives to meet the gifting and home décor needs of the shoppers. The same are available online on their portal as well.
The floriculture market is estimated to reach Rs 320 billion by 2025, they said.
(The author is an intern at The Hindu BusinessLine)
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