The turnover generated through Royal FloraHolland’s auction clocks continues to decrease. The management board expects that if they keep a close eye on the costs, they’ll be able to break even the next three years. In the meantime, the auction is working hard on the development of a new revenue model.
Royal FloraHolland suffered a €5.8-million loss last year. Much less than the management board feared about a year ago. CFO David van Mechelen predicted a loss of tens of millions of euros at that time. In 2020, growers distributed 11.4 billion plants and flowers via the auction. A 7.8% decrease compared to 2019. However, prices went up by 5.3%. As a result, the product turnover ‘only’ went down by 2.9%, amounting to €4.7 billion in total.
The decreased product turnover was mainly caused by a drop in demand between mid-March and mid-May. Van Mechelen: “The fall in supply meant that the turnover generated through our services went down. At the same time, our costs went up because we had to redesign our operations and other services to make them compliant with the Covid measures. The auction was also facing higher sick leave rates.
