Regardless of how you grow, the profitability of your farm will depend on three main factors: demand, viability, and profit margin. Lots of new farmers focus the majority of their efforts on their ability to grow a single crop and forget to do research on the other factors.
Turkish Cargo carries 4k tonnes flowers from Nairobi, Quito
Turkish Cargo transported 4,000 tonnes of flowers from Nairobi, Kenya to Stansted, Narita, Maastricht, and Riyadh; and from Quito, Ecuador to Amsterdam, Beijing, Manila, Jakarta and Taiwan, in addition to its charter flights.
The accomplished air cargo brand carried flowers between January 1 to February 10, 2019. Providing its services by means of the airconditioned aircraft for maximum freshness and shelf-life with cold chain solutions, Turkish Cargo makes it possible to carry the flowers of Africa, an important centre to grow flowers, to the entire world with its air cargo services provided to 36 countries across the African region, and a total of 54 destinations.
Carrying 20,000 tonnes of flowers in 2018, Turkish Cargo continues providing high-quality and well-preserved air cargo service enriched with temperature-controlled containers at different temperature ranges in a total of 43 special cargo rooms available on board the aircraft.
While reaching more than 300 global destinations in 2018, Turkish Cargo also carried a total of 1.4 million tonnes of cargo.
AFKLMP Cargo moves 3,300 tonnes of flowers to Europe
Air France KLM Martinair (AFKLMP) Cargo has shipped about 3,300 tonnes (up 10 percent compared to last year) of flowers to Europe from leading production and export countries such as Kenya, Ecuador, and Colombia over a two-week period in January and February. The additional 1,100 tonnes for Valentine’s Day consisted of some 57,500,000 stems.
Using its B747-400 full-freighter and combi-aircraft, the airline was able to generate ample main deck capacity to and from our three main flower starting points of Nairobi, Quito, and Bogota. For the first time, AFKLMP rerouted four B777F flights from Nairobi to Paris via Amsterdam to support the demand for flowers and Dutch trade. The bellies of longhaul passenger aircraft and interline partners are also well suited to carrying flowers to Europe. The greatest share of our capacity is mainly intended to supply the European markets - primarily Dutch, English, Italian, French, Russian, Asian, and most notably Japanese.
In 2018, AFKLMP Cargo shipped more than 84,000 tonnes of flowers from Africa and Latin America to Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. “We met seasonal peak flower demand for this year’s Valentine’s Day with enormous success. We are proud to show our strong commitment and professional dedication to the international flower business, which has a proven history over so many decades,” Marcel de Nooijer, executive vice president, AFKLMP Cargo said.
To move flowers and plants seamlessly from grower to wholesaler; Royal FloraHolland, Schiphol Cargo, and AFKLMP Cargo have initiated the Holland Flower Alliance, an ambitious group of floricultural logistics professionals dedicated to the pursuit of innovation and sustainability in the floral supply chain. Amsterdam remains Europe’s logistics centre for the flower market, with Schiphol Airport being the world’s preferred flower hub, connecting all key production and consumer markets.
Panalpina flies 1.6 mn roses from Nairobi- Sydney through direct freighter
Panalpina, the international freight forwarding logistics company, has transported 1.6 million stems of freshly cut roses from Nairobi to Sydney, using B777F aircraft for Valentine’s Day.
The ‘Love Plane’ marks the first direct full freighter flight in this route making Panalpina the first and only freight forwarder with this service offering in the market. The special delivery follows the expansion of Panalpina’s cold storage facility in Nairobi’s Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in November 2018, which will enable the company to move a projected 80,000 tonnes of flowers, fruit, and vegetables in and out of Kenya by 2020.
“Some say love makes the world go round. Panalpina makes things go round the world, and we are happy to make Valentine’s Day much more special for our friends down under,” said Quint Wilken, Panalpina’s global head of air freight perishables.
Kenya is one of the world’s largest exporters of cut flowers, which represent the country’s second largest export commodity after tea, and Australia is one of the biggest Asia Pacific importers of the East African nation’s famed roses.
Lufthansa Cargo carries 900 tonnes of roses for Valentine’s Day to Europe
To serve high import demand around Valentine’s Day, Lufthansa Cargo has transported 900 tonnes of the long-stemmed flowers on the Quito-Frankfurt, Bogota - Frankfurt, and Nairobi - Frankfurt routes this year, which are equivalent to some 10 million individual roses. The roses are being imported over a period of about three weeks.
Most of the roses begin their journey in Bolivia, Ecuador or Kenya. To keep the flowers fresh from post-harvest until its recipient, the airline has developed the special Fresh/td product specifically for the transportation of perishable goods such as flowers and food.
The roses are harvested several times a day at the flower farms in Africa and South America and then immediately placed in water and cooled. Following sorting and packing, the flowers are taken directly to the airport and loaded onto the freighters. The flowers only remain in Frankfurt Airport for a short while.
Just a few hours after landing, the roses are transported onwards from this city on the Main River out into all of Europe - primarily to other German cities, but also to neighbouring countries, including Austria and Switzerland.
Carriers add charters for demand surge Many carriers working within networks that encompass major exporting regions of roses and tropical buds – e.g. East Africa and South America – offered additional services just to address the flux in demand from markets in Europe and North America. Emirates SkyCargo is one such airline. It added nine 777 freighter flights out of Nairobi (NBO) and Quito (UIO) on top of its existing operations for the weeks preceding the holiday.
Earlier this year, SkyCargo launched a new freighter route from “Nairobi directly to Sydney and from Quito directly to Los Angeles” to bolster its perishables network. The airline’s program, Emirates Fresh Breathe, specializes in regulating the cool-chain of pre-assembled bouquets (pictured.)
UPS also boosted its frequencies – adding a total of 50 charter flights during the period of heightened demand. It expected to deliver some 89 million flowers in time for Feb. 14 – an increase of about 1 million flowers from the quantity it delivered last year, which would add up to more than 4,000 tonnes of fragile, temperature-sensitive blossoms.
