An Overview on the Market of Edible Flowers

ABSTRACT

Edible flowers have become the latest food fashion, such as in United Kingdom, Portugal and Australia, making this niche market very challenging. Producers and points of sale of edible flowers (supermarkets, local markets, online) are increasing around the world, whereas consumers and professional chefs are demanding higher quality products. Despite being a growing market, information available on production, export and import is still scarce, without statistical data, with information restricted to that given by some producers and points of sale. So, this review aims to provide valuable information on the current situation of the edible flowers’ world market, with particular emphasis in Portugal, as well as, to give knowledge about legislation, promotional projects and campaigns, consumers and chefs perceptions, and to indicate the future trends regarding edible flowers.

KEYWORDS:

• Edible flowers
• market
• world
• Portugal
• Trends

Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) for the financial support provided by the research grant SFRH/BD/95853/2013 and FCT/MCT for the financial support to QOPNA research Unit (FCT UID/QUI/00062/2019), through national funds and where applicable, co-financed by the FEDER, within the PT2020 Partnership Agreement, and to the Portuguese NMR Network, and to REQUIMTE through the Project PEst/UID/QUI/50006/2019. The authors are also grateful to FCT (Portugal) and FEDER under Programme PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2019).

Highlights

- Edible flowers’ use was already common in some cultures;

- Nowadays, edible flowers are becoming a new food trend;

- Consumers and chefs’ perceptions that edible flowers are safe to stimulate their market;

- However, there is a lack of information at the level of legislation and production;

- The information available on these topics is presented and discussed;

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [FCT UID/QUI/00062/ 2019, PEst/ UID/QUI/50006/2019, SFRH/BD/95853/2013,UID/AGR/00690/2019.