Southland tulip grower and bulb exporter Van Eeden Tulips has shut up shop, leaving a gap in the local tulip bulb market.
Philip van Eeden, who handles planning and administration for the group, said their last bulb sales were in May last year.
Van Eeden was in business with his brothers John, Michael, Peter and Eric.
The brothers were seventh-generation tulip growers, with their parents moving to New Zealand from the Netherlands in the 1950s to start a tulip business.
They grew about 60 varieties on 25 hectares and their operation was the only large grower to service the local market.
A third of their bulbs were sold locally, another third exported to the United States, with the remainder exported to the Netherlands.
Van Eeden said Eric was only a shareholder, and the eldest brothers, Michael and Peter, “were closer to 70 than to 65” and decided to retire.
“John and myself were unwilling to take on all the extra workload, and decided it was a good time to wind the business up. We tried to sell it but could not find a buyer in Holland,” he said.
Van Eeden said they did not “look very hard” for buyers in New Zealand, and that finding a local buyer to take over the entire business would have been hard as such a buyer would have to be an experienced tulip grower.
None of the brothers will continue growing. They are selling their land and will “go their separate ways”, Van Eeden said,
None of their children were willing to take over the business, he said.
The Van Eedens were the only local growers to serve the local market, with other growers mostly supplying only export markets.
Van Eeden said they will all definitely miss growing, especially as he and his brothers worked together on a daily basis.
Paul Hoek, owner of Aorangi Bulbs in Feilding, said the Van Eedens are already missed in the market and their exit has left a big gap.
Hoek has been buying tulip bulbs from them for more than 15 years.
While other local growers focus on producing bulbs for cut flowers exported to the northern hemisphere, the Van Eedens were the only suppliers who also grew fancy home garden varieties for local sales, Hoek said.
“We’ve lost a third of the varieties we sold,” he said.
The Van Eedens produced bulbs for local markets, garden centres and direct-to-public mail order merchants, Hoek said, and will be missed not only because of the superb bulbs they grew but also because they were superb to deal with.
