Rose Box specialises in all things to do with roses, planting its own certified organic roses in a 20 hectare farm in Pingtung, Taiwan.
“We can guarantee the freshness and quality of every rose because we only use roses from our own farm in our products, which are picked every morning and immediately transported to our nearby factory for processing,” Rose Box parent company Grand Blossom Grange Owner Yang Tien Te told FoodNavigator-Asia.
“The processing gives us rose pastes, rose teas and rose powders which we then use to make our other B2B and B2C products.
“One of the most popular products currently is rose jam, made with rose petals, apple and lemon juice – this is not as sweet as regular fruit jams and even has a tinge of bitterness to it from the rose, but the natural strong rose aroma is unrivalled.
“This has gained significant popularity in Taiwan already as both a jam sold directly to consumers as well as a filling or ingredient in other product categories such as bakery and yoghurts.
“Moving forward, our key focus will be to expand exports of our products – Japan is one of our first markets, and the next major one is Singapore as we have already received a lot of interested queries from companies here.
“Markets like Singapore and Japan are very important to us as consumers here are very modern and very urban, with a high appreciation for premium and fine products, and roses align very closely with this so there is a lot of expansion potential here.”
Rose Box has also developed a wide range of products and dishes made with rose as the main ingredient to showcase the wide and versatile uses for roses in the market, across various food and beverage categories.
“We are showcasing many of these dishes in our own café at the rose farm in Taiwan - many of which consumers tend to express surprise when they see we have expanded the use of roses beyond just the regular beverage, bakery or dessert categories,” he added.
“Many of our more unique dishes are in fact savoury ones – things like Rose Baked Chicken Wings, Rose Mince Noodles, Rose Sushi, Old Style Rose Pizza, Rose Jade Steamboat, Rose Onion Omelette and more have seen a lot of success.
“So there is truly a lot of opportunity to develop roses as a versatile ingredient that can be used in many categories, but what we need to do now is educate the industry and consumers that this is indeed possible, so we are starting off with Rose Jam as this is a format that most people would be able to accept right away.”
Other major opportunities
The firm has also developed technology to extract rose polyphenols and is selling these as a dissolvable functional powder for its antioxidation and anti-obesity benefits.
Other major products that it has developed are in the personal care sector, with a rose toner water and face masks prized for hydrating and whitening properties.
