Presented in a bar chart, 2025 spending on flowers and plants across eight key European destinations still looks healthy compared with 2019. Once adjusted for inflation, however, a very different picture emerges. Rabobank does not expect any major fluctuations in 2026.
In its latest horticulture barometer, Rabobank analyses per-capita spending on cut flowers and houseplants in eight European countries. The barometer compares 2025 with 2019, the last ‘normal’ year before the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine, after which inflation rose sharply. Spending figures show that, in almost all countries, expenditure on cut flowers remained at similar levels in 2019 and 2025, ranging in 2025 from around EUR 11.50 per inhabitant in Poland to roughly EUR 34.50 in France.
Total consumer spending on cut flowers in these eight countries (Belgium, France, Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Denmark, Sweden and United Kingdom) rose from EUR 6.9 billion to EUR 7.15 billion, an increase of 3.5% over a six-year period. However, taking into account a general inflation of around 20% in these countries over the same six years, this points to a volume decline of more than 16% in cut flower purchases. Comparisons of flower prices at Royal FloraHolland and average export prices for cut flowers from the Netherlands suggest that price increases for cut flowers in these countries have broadly kept pace with general price inflation.
