Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Shyris y El Portugal, Quito
At the intersection of Shyris, one of the main thoroughfares in Quito, and El Portugal street is a very popular cafe and patisserie, as well as two busy little flower stands. Normally they are loaded with buckets and buckets of roses, which they buy very cheaply on the so-called "national" market.
Today, as I passed by I noticed just two buckets of roses from fincas, in place of the 15 to 20 they normally have on hand, and often more. At first I thought nothing of it, but on reflection I realised that this is a barometer of how tight the market is for export roses.
However, this also indicates that some growers are grading "National" quality roses into bunches for export. I have stayed on top of this during my visits to the farms; repeatedly opening bunches of roses in the post-harvest areas to make sure this is not happening, and to the best of my ability, as well as having confidence in the integrity of our suppliers, I have ascertained that our flowers are all export quality.
# posted by Mayesh International @ 6:43 PM 
