The translocal cluster of the Lake Naivasha cut flower industry is deeply entangled in the reorganisation of cut flower production, trade, and retail, and therefore also in the emergence of a new market order. As I have shown in the previous chapters, the market entry of corporate retailers brought along with it the emergence and rising importance of new market encounters. Corporate buyers were able to shift trade relations in their favour by influencing the objectification and standardisation of flowers in their interest. Moreover, they achieved a reduction in sales prices through the use of their knowledge in price-making processes. Ultimately, the market entry of retail chains has not led to a simplified, buyer-driven value chain, but has rather complexified market encounters and increased their diversity in forms, volatility, and quantity. Considering this complex network of trade relations, the process of connecting Lake Naivasha to global markets, that is ‘the on-going, and relatively autonomous, material and ideological processes of linking different social and structural elements’ (Bair, Werner 2011, 992), requires further attention. This sort of analysis has been largely neglected by GCC scholars (Bair, Werner 2011). Yet, a detailed account of the forging of linkages is necessary to explain how new power relations unfolded, why standards became an important market device in the cut flower industry, and why production has been reorganised. In this chapter, I will examine how dynamics in cut flower production relate to developments in the Dutch trade hub and the emergence of a new market order. I will first analyse how flower growers in Naivasha are linked to (European) buyers and how new relations between farms in Naivasha and buyers and consumers in Europe influence the local cut flower industry. A detailed examination of these relations is necessary in order to understand to what extent the reorganisation of the cut flower industry has contributed to the rising importance of corporate retailers and, vice versa, how retail chains are driving dynamics in the Lake Naivasha cut flower industry. These questions will be addressed in Chapter 7.

Forging linkages between growers and buyers

The trade statistics for 2017 show that the Netherlands is by far the most important export destination for Kenyan cut flowers with a market share of 52% (see Figure 9).