Ep.100: Arnold Wittkamp of Thursd: Inside the Global Flower Industry

About eighty percent of the flowers sold in this country are imported, and I have said for years that local growers are not competing with each other, we are competing with that eighty percent. So this week I wanted to understand it better, from someone who knows it from the inside. Arnold Wittkamp is the founder of Thursd, the global online magazine for the flower and plant industry, and he came to it after thirty five years in the trade that started on the floating flower market in Amsterdam when he was fifteen. This is a different kind of episode for this show. On this podcast we typically focus on local flowers and the growers who grow local flowers, and this episode looks into the whole global system instead, into imports and exports and what a flower farm actually builds in a village in Kenya. I asked him the hard questions and he answered all of them. Some of what we get into: * Why Arnold believes our industry told the wrong story about sustainability, and what he thinks we should have said instead * What the flower trade has built for families in Kenya, Ethiopia, Colombia and Ecuador, told through one farm he watched change over ten years * Why he says anyone handling imported flowers every day should be wearing gloves * The oldest flower shop in Amsterdam, and the four words its owner said to every stem he unwrapped This podcast still believes wholeheartedly in local flowers, and nothing in this hour changed that. We believe that they matter for our communities, they matter for the environment, and they matter for the people growing them. Keep asking where your flowers came from, find your local flower farmer, and support them. About Arnold Wittkamp Arnold Wittkamp is the founder of Thursd, the global online magazine for the flower and plant industry, which he launched in September 2019 around the line Thursd is good for you. Thirty five years in the trade took him from the Amsterdam floating flower market to his own export company to importing scented garden roses into a European market that did not want them. Thursd works with growers, breeders and industry organizations including the Kenya Flower Council, the Ethiopian producers' organization, Asocolflores and Fairtrade. He is building Thursd Shop, a direct to florist sourcing platform that will be partly owned by the growers themselves. He also hosts a Dutch language podcast with more than sixty episodes on how people really feel about flowers. Connect with Jennifer, Host of The Backyard Bouquet Podcast: Website: https://thefloweringfarmhouse.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhousehttps://www.instagram.com/thefloweringfarmhouse/ Follow the Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thebackyardbouquetpodcast/ Sign up for our newsletter: https://bit.ly/thefloweringfarmhousenewsletter