During the ribbon cutting ceremony on March 25 at the World Floral Expo in Rosemont, IL, Harrison (Red) Kennicott, chief executive officer of Kennicott Bros. Co. in Chicago, pointed out an interesting twist of fate.

“It is fitting that this show is being held in Rosemont because it was the original area where roses were grown for the Chicago floral trade,” Kennicott said. He recalled his father taking him to Rosemont when he was a child to see the fields of greenhouses. Decades later, the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center (where the expo was held) now sits on the very location of one of the largest rose growers from that era.

Kennicott urged all parts of the floral industry to come together and promote industry growth.

“We aren’t competing against each other, we are competing with all the other things consumers can buy,” Kennicott said.

The expo represented this “coming together” with 87 exhibitors from over 10 countries displaying a diverse assortment of flowers and services. One of the new vendors this year was Naniwa Flower Auction Co. from Osaka, Japan, Asia’s second largest cut flower auction. Their specialties are oversized ranunculus, sweet peas, gloriosa and other novelty flowers.

“These flowers are so exceptional, customers would be more than willing to pay the premium price they would demand,” said Ted Dorl, owner of Kreutzer & Dorl Florists in Newport, KY.

Another new exhibitor was Suera Flowers Limited from Nairobi, Kenya, a grower of roses, spray roses and calla lilies. Opened in 1996 by Susan Mureithi to provide jobs for her four children, the farm has grown to 75 acres (30 hectares), exports 40 million blooms a year and employs over 1,000 people in the community.

“Our goal is to increase to 80 hectares [197 acres] in the near future, grow more flowers and provide more jobs to the community,” said Mureithi.

HPP Exhibitions brought in a team of floral designers from Holland to conduct a series of seminars on the latest techniques and trends in Dutch floral design.

There were also two separate tours of the new Chicago Perishables Center at O’Hare Airport, currently under development. Attendees viewed the facility’s exterior, the loading docks and the fumigation facility. When finished, the center will provide clearing and handling of perishable products coming into the Midwest from outside the country.

“The center is not only for flowers, we have a lot of interest from produce growers in both South and Central America using it to ship their products into Chicago,” said Shlomo Danieli, owner of Blooming of Beloit in Beloit, WI, who is involved in the center’s development. No official date for the opening has been set.

As the World Floral Expo came to an end, Dick van Raamsdonk, president of HPP Exhibitions in Amsterdam, said the 2015 WFE would take place March 11-13 in San Diego. HPP is working with the California Association of Flower Growers & Shippers in planning the next global floral event.