Air cargo industry does see a dynamic market in flower transportation and is honing its skill to facilitate an integrated cool supply chain.
Growers in Kenya were hoping to do brisk business during this Valentine’s Day when they were caught in tangle as a logistics logjam seemed lurking around the corner due to an inbound freight crunch, causing a dearth of outbound cargo flights from Kenya. Amid the accelerating global economic recovery, cargo aircraft had diverted to more-profitable routes in Europe, the US and Asia, and away from less profitable ones in Africa. A Wall Street Journal report says that with air carriers insisting on flexibility and waiting till the last minute to commit to cargo flights, Kenya’s freight crunch around Valentine’s Day was hard to circumvent given the short life of cut flowers.
Confirming the crisis situation, Conrad Archer, country manager, Panalpina Kenya revealed that this caused increased costs of extra freighters for Valentine’s and International Women’s Day and indeed affected the flower business in Kenya. “The costs were unprecedented this year. Many of the supply chains were locked and not prepared for any additional logistics costs, especially at the levels charged. The volumes were still moved, but it was not without difficulties. Since Chinese New Year was on February 16th this year, Kenya was not able to take advantage of the Chinese downturn during that time. Flights operated on days that were not convenient for shippers. On top of that, the problems arising from the local plant health authority system, again affected the documentation process.”
Growing awareness among shippers
It is worth mentioning here that the cut flower industry in Africa, particularly in Kenya and Ethiopia, has flourished rapidly in the past few years, as Netherlands- traditionally the centre of production for the European floral market, shifted its attention towards flower trading instead of production. This has brought focus on Africa, the next nearest region to European countries that produces flowers in huge quantity for trade, favoured by its climatic conditions. Apart from government initiatives to improve the poor state of infrastructure for a smoother trade route, growers as well as logistic players are also increasingly getting aware about measures that can boost production and bring more returns.
During the second edition of Flower Logistics Africa, organised by Logistics Update Africa, growers as well as the entire cross section of the supply chain unanimously called for standardisation across the value chain to make it lean.
In other words, emphasis was laid on a uniform code for all stakeholders including the shippers, supply chain industry, airlines and airports that could be linked to IATA standards.
“Increasingly it is becoming very clear that no one association can cover all the areas of concern. No one association has the competence to deal with all the issues across the value chain. And therefore they need to realise or appreciate the strengths of each association and see how we can tap into that strength and come up with a product that is of value to the common membership we have of the business folk in the industry,” said Jane Ngige, chief executive officer of Kenya Horticulture Council on the sidelines of the event.
Technological upgradation is another important part which is also being taken care of, to facilitate the delicate process. The less often flowers are physically handled during their transportation the longer they are likely to maintain their beauty. The ideal situation is a stable logistics ‘cold chain’ that ensures quick and efficient transportation to keep the flowers as fresh as possible.
“The advent of vacuum cooling has had a major impact on the cold chain management. Panalpina is in the process of fitting its third double-maindeck unit as part of the $3.5 million expansion in Nairobi. We now also deliver our built-up pallets in reefer trucks to the ground-handling agent to ensure the cold chain is maintained. The fact that some producers have changed to a composite box, all pre-skidded prior to delivery, is an improvement. However, it requires us to invest in new facilities designed for unloading and pallet building with forklifts. Our new facility will also have several chambers, allowing us to handle different products with different temperature regimes, such as berries, flowers and plant cuttings,” informs Archer.
Meanwhile, Eline van den Berg, program manager at the Holland Flower Alliance (HFA) shares, “The Holland Flower Alliance was formed in 2016 with the aim to unite the floral logistics supply chain in order to optimise the entire ‘farm to vase’ process. We currently put our focus on the trade lane Nairobi-Amsterdam, where we seek to optimise and increase the speed and efficiency of the supply of freshly cut flowers.”
“The HFA sees great opportunities in the digitisation of the supply chain. Currently, for instance, different systems are used to forward shipment data among different parties and therefore with different parties we work on building an information platform together which can be used for information sharing, but also tracking and tracing of the flower boxes. Another topic is packaging.
Currently more than 300 types of boxes are used; there’s a great variety in box sizes and quality, and that brings along a lot of challenges such as building and breaking down of ULD’s. We see a lot of benefits which can be gained from creating more standardised flower boxes. Hence, one of our focuses is related to the standardisation of these boxes,” van den Berg adds further.
She also informs that from the total import supply of roses of The Netherlands, 85 percent is coming from Africa. “Especially the first quarter of each year and the volumes received are extremely high because of two important flower holidays i.e. Valentine’s Day (14 February) and International Women’s Day (8 March).
There is no denying the fact that the air cargo industry does see a dynamic market in flower transportation and is honing its skill to facilitate an integrated cool supply chain, however, the freighter shortage was a stark reality.
Tapping opportunities from unexplored markets While European countries have remained the primary markets for flower growers, Africa is gradually looking beyond its traditional consumers to find new markets in China, Australia, Japan and the US. According to a Rabobank Report, Europe and North America are likely to see a 2 percent growth per year in cut flower and potted plant expenditures, while Asia will see a 6-8 percent growth annually. It is because of such scenarios that Kenya is trying to get the four percent levy that China has imposed on flower exports, scrapped.
Kenya Airways Commercial Manager in Charge of Cargo, Peter Musola recently stated that bilateral talks between Kenya and China were at an advanced stage as the latter eyes the hugely untapped market.
