Nairobi, February 22nd, 2023: The Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency (KEPROBA) is partnering with Plant Without Borders, a US based global marketplace for plants and flowers to promote Kenya’s flowers in the United States of America, a move that’s aimed at diversifying Kenya’s floriculture markets abroad.

The Plant Without Borders company started in May 2021 by linking small farmers in Southeast Asia with businesses across the United States. The company has facilitated over 200 transactions of regulated commodities besides venturing into cut flowers in 2023.

The floriculture market in the US is expected to register a compound annual growth rate of 6% between the 2021 and 2027 period according to US department of agricultural statistics. The US flower market is segmented into two categories namely cut flowers and plants with cut flowers accounting for most of the flower trade in the US. The United States is importing 80% of her cut flowers to supplement the high demand in the country.

Being the world’s 3rd largest producer of cut flowers, Kenya has the ability to supply the demand for flowers in mainland USA. Kenya sells approximately 70% of her flowers in the European nations with the main markets being the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and Norway respectively. Approximately half of Kenya’s flowers in Europe are sold through the Dutch auctions.

Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency through the Plants Without Borders partnership aims at educating the flower value chain stakeholders and exporters on various processes of accessing the US markets.

The joint webinar educated the exporters on:

1. Cross-border Prospecting:
2. Regulatory Compliance: how to identify what regulations you need to follow to ship your products into the United States.
3. Identifying Logistics: how to identify fulfilment solutions.

The attending participants will have access to key leads in the US markets such as

1. List of florists in the US with phone numbers, emails, and addresses.
2. List of flower wholesalers in the US with phone numbers, emails, and addresses.
3. List of flower importers in the US with phone numbers, emails, and addresses.
4. Phone sales script that their employees are currently using.

‘Floriculture is a top foreign exchange earner that generates over USD 1 billion annually. The sector accounts for 1.25% of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product hence the need to steer it towards growth. Market diversification of Kenyan products especially horticultural and vegetable products is a great step towards agricultural liberalization in the country. Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency is partnering with firms that share the vision of economic transformation through diversification of export products and markets,’ said Floice Mukabana, the acting CEO Kenya Export Promotion and Branding Agency.

Kenya is also accessing the US market through the African Growth and Opportunity Act of 2000.  Through this act, the flourishing Kenyan flower industry enjoys duty free access to US markets hence giving room for Kenyan exporters to venture into the enormous American market. The introduction of direct flights from Nairobi to New York has also cut the delays that were associated with connection freights into the US.