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| India-Pakistan |
| Indian man unable to buy roses for his wife, now world's largest grower |
| 2007-10-27 |
| There is a school of thought that says that if you are going to get something done properly, then you have to do it yourself. It is a principle at the heart of many a great business and it is one that Ramakrishna Karuturi knows well, one that this week has made him the world’s largest cultivator of roses. He has risen to the top of the rose tree, becoming the world’s largest cultivator of the flowers, after Karuturi Networks, his Bangalore-based company, agreed to buy Sher Agencies, the Kenyan nursery of a Dutch flower producer, in a €50 million (£35 million) deal. The mechanical engineer, who returned to India from business school in Ohio in the United States a decade ago to run the family cables and transmissions towers business, began his unlikely move into the flower industry one long, frustrating Valentine’s Day. Hunting for a rose bouquet for his wife across India’s IT hub, he drew a blank. Bangalore was a rose-free zone. So he decided to start to grow them himself. In 1996, the entrepreneur opened two greenhouses on 3.2 hectares of land in the southern Indian city, which is renowned for its temperate climate, and began to export the flowers. Mr Karuturi’s roses are now sold in Africa, America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. With the Sher acquisition, the fourth outside India and a deal financed through foreign currency convertible bonds, Karuturi’s annual production has jumped from 130 million stems to 650 million. Its target is one billion stems by 2010. To achieve that, the company will build more greenhouses in Ethiopia and will seek further acquisitions in the highly fragmented global flower business. It is in advanced takeover talks with a nursery in Ecuador. Mr Karuturi, 42, believes that there is a large market in India, where Valentine’s Day is being celebrated increasingly. “There is huge potential in India. When I came back from the US, Valentine’s Day was unheard of as a festival, but now even on Mother’s Day, gifts are exchanged. I was surprised how quickly Western events have been assimilated into the culture,” Mr Karuturi said. About 20 per cent of Karuturi’s rose business is domestic, but he says that can be increased to 50 per cent. The company has 40 flower shops in India and aims to open a further 60 by Christmas. Karuturi also supplies bottled gherkins to European, American and Russian supermarkets and provides niche software and IT services. An estimated 40,000 hectares of land are under rose cultivation world-wide, yet the biggest farm is no more than 200 hectares. Kenya has the world’s largest share of the rose trade - 4 per cent – because it has ideal growing conditions, including 12 hours of light a day. Horticulture is Kenya’s third-biggest foreign exchange earner, bringing about $100 million (£49 million) into the economy every year, with most flowers exported to Europe. |
| Posted by:john frum |
| #6 Zenster, you sound like a delightful and enthusiastic beau. May you one day find yourself happily married to a woman who appreciates you properly. Thank you for the kind thoughts, trailing wife. I'm working on it. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-27 17:08 |
| #5 Andrew Wyeth, the American painter, did 240 nude studies of his neighbor, Helga Testorf, over a 14 year period, unknown to either his wife or her husband, the latter who was surprised, to say the least, after seeing a painting of his nude wife on the cover of Time Magazine. Shortly thereafter, a cartoon came out which showed a somewhat cringing Andrew Wyeth, with his wife saying rather angrily, "Why don't you ask Helga for a cup of coffee?" |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2007-10-27 11:34 |
| #4 Mr. Wife paints in oils, and gave each of his girlfriends an oil painting. He never gave me one, but brought two paintings into the marriage. He also brought his love of beauty and artistic taste, and enthusiasm for painting the walls of wherever we lived. He is looking forward to painting again when the trailing daughters are grown. Zenster, you sound like a delightful and enthusiastic beau. May you one day find yourself happily married to a woman who appreciates you properly. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-10-27 10:05 |
| #3 I grow flowers, rather than give them. Mrs. no mo has often told her friends that if I ever actually gave her flowers, it would mean there was another woman. We see a theme developing here? |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2007-10-27 06:58 |
| #2 One woman even commented to a girlfriend of mine how the only time she got roses was when her husband was trying to make up for cheating on her. The common thread between infidelity and funerals has finally been identified. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2007-10-27 03:30 |
| #1 As a devout capitalist who delights in ikebana and giving women flowers, this story strikes numerous chords. People who teach flower arranging have requested the loan of my own collection of ikebana accessories. My sweethearts have always received at least one or more bouquets of flowers—usually a dozen roses—each week and have had other women express amazement at the regularity thereof. One woman even commented to a girlfriend of mine how the only time she got roses was when her husband was trying to make up for cheating on her. Another bemoaned how even after giving birth to their son, all she got from her husband were carnations. Amongst local florists, I'm known as a tyrant for picking out each individual flower for bouquets and even bringing in my own vases when their selection is inadequate. “There is huge potential in India. When I came back from the US, Valentine’s Day was unheard of as a festival, but now even on Mother’s Day, gifts are exchanged. I was surprised how quickly Western events have been assimilated into the culture,” Small wonder that a largely free society has evolved a tradition of celebrating events that elicit such universal sentiment whereby they are adopted by entirely foreign cultures. I really should say "ostensibly foreign cultures" because India—as Asia's largest democracy and most productive economy—has so much in common with America that their embrace of our own popular holidays really is no surprise. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-10-27 00:37 |