Nothing brings more pleasure than receiving a fresh bouquet of flowers that can be enjoyed for days.

But, more fascinating may be the logistics story behind the cut flowers. After all, the United States is one of the largest markets for fresh cut flowers. According to 2006 U.S. Department of Commerce figures, the latest year this data is available, fresh flower imports were estimated to be worth $750 million. Imported fresh cut flowers are now more than twice the value of domestic production sold. About half of the imports are roses, which are supplied primarily by Colombia and followed by Ecuador. Colombia and Ecuador account for more than 80 percent of the overall flowers exported during the peak Valentine’s Day season.

Orchids are supplied by Taiwan, the Netherlands, and Thailand; tulips and lilies are imported from the Netherlands. Others come from Brazil, Costa Rica, and the Dominican Republic.

Valentine’s and Mother’s Day are the biggest days for selling fresh cut flowers and bouquets. Last year, UPS added 24 extra flights to their regular schedule to handle the increase in volume.

To accommodate these large volumes, efficient packaging, handling, and shipping processes are implemented. To speed the process and keep the flowers as fresh as they can be, they are cut fresh and packed from the field then flown to the United States.

A number of air carriers handle the shipments. For them, perishables are a major commodity and good steady business.

“From our operations in the local markets, temperature-controlled aircraft, facilities, and trained handlers in Miami, UPS is focused on providing the best quality service so that every single flower arrives fresh at their final destination,” says Tom O’Malley, Vice President of Air Cargo, UPS Americas.

Most shipments enter the country through Miami International Airport (MIA), by far the No. 1 port of entry for imported fresh flowers into the United States.

According to O’Malley, UPS customers tend to prefer handling business from Miami because of the wealth of logistics knowledge and trust in the infrastructure of MIA.

Christine Boltt, executive vice president of the Association of Floral Importers of Florida (AFIF), reports that MIA processes some 85 percent of all flower imports to the United States throughout its facilities, which will contribute an estimated $1.4 billion in annual flower sales.

The flowers are deplaned at MIA as a single consolidated shipment and placed in refrigerated warehouses where they are carefully examined by U.S. Customs and the Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, those working at UPS MIA facilities seamlessly coordinate cargo and package movements while offering time-sensitive solutions for delivering the flowers to customers.

UPS’s Trade Direct™ Air services, for example, have restructured the traditional perishable goods supply chain process, eradicating prolonged and expensive warehouse stops for repackaging. This service allows UPS to ship finished rose bouquets direct from farms in Latin America to U.S. consumers. UPS manages the entire route, including the cargo movement to MIA and the entry into the UPS small package network for final express delivery across the United States. Customers can also track their shipments throughout the entire process using UPS’s Tracking technology.

Likewise, FedEx ships flowers on the day of harvest from Colombia to the United States using FedEx Express International Priority® (next-business-day) and FedEx Express International Priority DirectDistribution® (three-day) services. According to a study entitled “The Impact of Floral Transport Techniques on Quality and Longevity of Fresh Cut Flowers,” flowers shipped using these services showed an increase in quality as compared to flowers shipped using traditional transportation methods.

“Our flower transportation solutions are designed to help our customers deliver the freshest and best-quality flowers in the industry,” says Juan N. Cento, president, FedEx Express, Latin America and Caribbean Division.

FedEx offers select transportation solutions in key Latin American flower export markets, including Bogotá and Medellin, Colombia and Quito, Ecuador. These solutions offer customers cost effective, customized services that meet the special export needs for their cargo and perishable goods. They combine the benefits of consolidated customs clearance with the FedEx Express air and ground delivery infrastructure in the United States, offering exporters tailored, door-to-door, airport-to-door, or door-to-airport solutions through a single, reliable provider.

The integrators, however, are not the only carriers handling volumes of this delicate commodity. American Airlines (AA), which uses MIA as its hub and is one of the largest U.S. carriers serving the Caribbean, and Central and South America, offers its clients Expedite FS express service. Expedite FS is AA Cargo’s express freight product that provides priority boarding, a 97 percent service reliability metric, and a 100 percent flown-as-booked guarantee.

According to an AA Cargo spokesperson, most flowers are shipped using its Expedite FS express service. The service guarantees that shipments will arrive on a specific flight, an important element in the quickly changing floral industry.

C-Change

The industry has gone through a major transformation. In the not so distant past, Americans used to purchase their flowers from a florist. Now the business is influenced by the increasing role of direct marketers; the advent of direct-from-grower delivery services, where orders are delivered via courier with no involvement of retail florists or proprietors; and the increased presence of mass merchants such as supermarkets and other retail channels.

Cold storage and refrigerated shipments, air cargo service, new routes and facilities, as well as technology solutions for tracking and tracing shipments are quickly advancing the perishables industry.

USA Bouquet is a good example of this evolving trend. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, five minutes from Miami International Airport (MIA), this national manufacturer and distributor of fresh cut flower bouquets and arrangements operates as a marketer, importer, processor, and distributor of fresh floral products. It serves the mass merchandiser, grocery and club channels, and provides e-commerce fulfillment services to nationally recognized direct marketing companies selling floral products over the Internet.

“Recognizing the value of logistics, the USA Bouquet Company has invested resources in creating a network of sourcing, production and distribution facilities,” a company spokesperson says. “With facilities in Miami, Chicago, New York, Atlanta, Dallas and Toronto, we import, manufacture, and distribute fresh cut flowers from around the world.”

The company operates over 320,000 square feet of operational space and 200,000 square feet of state-of-the-art production and cold storage space at these five locations specifically designed for the floral industry. Each facility is in close access to each location’s airport.

The process involves standalone automated production lines. Cut flowers and arrangements of floral assortments are placed in a cooler where they are boxed prior to loading and shipping.

“E-commerce is the fastest growing division in our group,” the spokesman states. This division has doubled from year-to-year due in part to the company’s state-of-the-art automated production distribution facilities and information systems.

USA Bouquet sources its flowers from approximately 5,000 acres worldwide with annual production capacity of over 3,000 cases per hour. Its annual production capacity is over 3 billion cases.

Another division within the USA Bouquet group is Consolidated Fresh Solutions (CfS). CfS offers logistical solutions to the floral industry. Services include temperature controlled warehousing, transportation, and freight management solutions from the company’s U.S. and international facilities. CfS’s tracking and tracing system allows its customers full access to the location of their shipments at all times.

“This alleviates concern in all aspects of the business and helps with sales and marketing,” a spokesman says.

Track and trace

Traceability is increasingly critical. A recent study by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration found that four years after the Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act was signed into law in 2002, 59 percent of food facilities do not have all the required information about where food products come from, where they are going, and what company is transporting them. Flowers are not exempt. There are known cases where flowers were found to be permeated with anthrax spores.

Without traceability, if a certain product is thought to be unsafe, every grower and company is affected, not just the one that produced that tainted item.

TraceGains provides a patented delivery system that offers real-time, bi-directional Positively Assured Traceability for food, beverage, and CPG supply chains. TraceGains reduces risks to the corporation and its executives who many become personally liable in case of a recall, if unable to comply with the FDA’s 24-hour traceability requirement.

But, its solutions are not just about reducing risk. Its technology solutions help companies turn disparate data into actionable business and value chain intelligence; it turns traceability from a cost center into a profit center. In fact, according to independent, peer-reviewed university studies, its customers have been found to typically experience a better than 300 percent return on investment and an average profitability increase between 3-5 percent.

The tracking of shipments is also an important component to the business, particularly for distribution. Here, the business is increasingly competitive.

ArrowStream, a company formed in 2000 to help the food service industry, provides distributors with a method to differentiate from the competition through supply chain strategy. One way, they suggest, is to integrate their product into the chain operator’s or retailer’s management systems.

By contributing item, pricing, inventory and shipping data via secure online software solutions, distributors add significant value for their operator and retailer customers through more efficient communication that translates into reduced administrative cost and greater opportunities to generate revenue for both distributor and retailer.

“And when distributors allow us to manage their inbound freight volume through our logistics network with ArrowStream Logistics, the distributor and their chain operator or retailer customers gain perpetual and increasing savings,” an ArrowStream marketer says.

3PL advantages

Third-party logistics providers (3PLs), offer a host of services and solutions that make the perishables supply chain smoother. Transplace, for one, offers an optimal and flexible combination of logistics services and technology targeting fresh produce.

“Transplace is used on many levels ranging from securing capacity on an ad hoc basis to complete 3PL solutions, depending on customer needs,” states Brian Parham, Transplace contract logistics director for operations.

For example, Transplace, in partnership with the shipper, decide the best mode of transportation based on price and service levels. 

“Transplace’s TMS solution assists customers in analyzing the cost of service requirements for shipping then recommends optimal mode and route selection,” Parham says.

The product helps shippers track and trace their shipments through the entire supply chain. “We track each shipment daily and obtain not only the location of the shipment, but also a temperature check on set temperature on unit, as well as, the ambient temperature inside the trailer,” he says.

This is important because it ensures proper cold chain compliance from loading to delivery.  Transplace also provides customizable TMS solutions that allow for a range of visibility offerings including exception management.

“This, along with our Business Intelligence interface, allows reporting on a wide range of business aspects from on-time performance at the carrier, shipper, and receiver level as well as monitoring cost performance on a daily basis,” he adds. 

In addition, Transplace works in partnership with customers to find competitive solutions for their perishable transportation needs. “We provide 3PL technology services giving the visibility and service level needed to manage their network,” he says.

Airport connections

Airports across the country have long been interested in capturing a segment of the profitable perishables and flower trade. MIA, long regarded North America’s gateway to the Americas, remains the major transit hub for Latin American- and Caribbean-grown flowers and produce. 

Central to that effort is MIA’s flow-thru design that permits off-loading positions close to freighter terminals and across from land-side trucking positions on the other side.

The airport’s “open-U” facility concept also permits multiple parked B747-400 freighters to transfer shipments to adjacent aircraft or to the facility alongside the activity. This is important since perishables are also making tail-to-tail connections to points in Europe and Asia.

Finally, all warehouses were fitted for installation of support features such as refrigeration units, or sub-sections to handle perishable products. In addition, present enhancements being handled by the Florida Department of Transportation are creating a widening of the main roadway out of MIA’s cargo areas.

“The enhancement includes an eventual viaduct to handle trucking operations destined to the Airport West area where literally tens of millions of square feet of cargo warehousing await,” says Chris Mangos, MIA marketing manager.              

In addition, a second on-airport fumigation facility is in the works.

Mercury Air Group, parent group for Mercury Air Cargo, recently opened its on-airport 12,700-square-foot refrigeration facility at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) to save money on trucking or flying flowers from MIA to the West Coast. 

Prior to this, the largest refrigeration units at LAX were approximately 4,000-square-feet.

“We are attempting to shift not all, but some of the traditional perishable traffic flown to MIA to LAX,” says David Herbst, executive vice president, Mercury Air Group. “It is better to fly to LAX then truck across the country. This saves time and cost, and especially increases the quality and freshness of the flowers.”

The new refrigeration unit is designed to accommodate a projected 8,500 tons of new perishable product annually arriving on LAN Cargo freighters from South America.

Prior to Mercury Air’s investment, the perishable traffic flown to LAX by LAN Cargo is one-quarter to one-half of the projected quantity because of lack of sufficient refrigeration at LAX to accommodate the flowers and provide a continuing “cold chain.”

Herbst points out that LAN Cargo currently lands six B-767 double-deck aircraft at LAX per week: three from Ecuador and three from Colombia. 

The direct air shipment to LAX is expected to create a shift in the U.S. flower supply chain and establish LAX as a new West Coast hub for the flower trade.

“Just think of this,” Herbst adds. “If a farm in Bogotá is shipping flowers to a flower shop in Portland, Oregon, it takes 71 hours from field to florist if that shipment goes via MIA. By comparison, that same flower to Portland via LAX take 28 hours.”  wt



Contributing writer Karen Thuermer writes frequently on transportation and logistics topics.