Family business and trading nursery Escaro Plants is a leading producer of beautiful sedum varieties, sempervivum, and echeveria. For their sales activities, they previously relied on user-friendly EAB software — but when that provider could not offer a connection to Floriday, Escaro Plants parted ways with them in 2021. They found the perfect alternative in the equally intuitive Grower software from FreshPortal, which not only met their desired Floriday integration for Plantion Flower Auction but exceeded their expectations.

"FreshPortal Grower software makes sure we never stand still," says Esther Meeuwsen, who runs the trading nursery together with her brothers Roland and Willem-Jan. "Escaro Plants was founded in 2005, building on years of experience in pot plant cultivation. Roland and I took over the business from our parents, Carel and Carla Meeuwsen. The name Escaro is made up of the first two letters of my name (ES), the first two letters of our parents' names (CA), and those of my brother Roland (RO). Willem-Jan joined in 2011, though by then the name Escaro already existed."

With their focus on cold-tolerant crops such as sedum and succulents, supplemented in spring with cheerful primroses and daisies, Escaro Plants has shown considerable foresight. Esther notes that with today's high energy prices, she is particularly glad they chose such energy-efficient crops. "Cultivation takes place in Ressen, near Nijmegen. Since we propagate our own plants, the process requires a lot of manual work. For this, we use a nearby location where people with occupational disabilities plant the cuttings for us. Escaro Plants holds MPS A+ and MPS GAP certification, meaning our products are grown sustainably with a strong focus on quality. Our plants are destined for premium exporters, garden centers, and retailers — at a fair price. We produce pot sizes ranging from 5.5 to 25 cm, with an annual output of around 1.2 million plants."

With so much activity and plans for further growth, Escaro Plants turned their attention to finding an EAB solution for Floriday. "What we were looking for was a straightforward program for creating, sending, and printing our electronic supply documents to all auctions — especially Plantion Flower Auction — at a reasonable cost and with room to expand in the future. A short search quickly led us to FreshPortal Grower software for Plantion Flower Auction. The software meets every requirement, and what was especially important to us: FreshPortal truly thinks along with you. All our existing data was migrated with FreshPortal's help, and we have since found that working with color-coding is incredibly practical — at a glance, you can see what has been processed and what hasn't. The next step is a management expansion, particularly around sales overviews and invoicing — and we have full confidence in that. FreshPortal's reliability means commitments are kept. If you need support or want more functionality, you just call and their team is ready to help."

FreshPortal Grower has been one of FreshPortal Software's flagship products for several years. This EAB software module was developed specifically for growers and traders in the ornamental horticulture sector, among other things as a successor to the AntEater package, which was permanently discontinued in June 2022. FreshPortal Grower has since proven itself in terms of ease of use and efficiency, offering a wide range of options. Particularly in day trading, the direct and seamless Floriday connection is seen as a must for fast and simple processing of even the most complex supply documents. The module comes standard with a photo feature. FreshPortal Grower is available for Floriday (Royal FloraHolland and Veiling Rhein-Maas) and for Plantion Flower Auction. The FreshPortal Grower software is fully cloud-based.