Liventus is blooming in the flower business

For many years we at Liventus have discussed and speculated on a role in the transportation of flowers. After consulting with many experts in the field we embarked on a few projects to understand how we can apply our technology for flowers and also to bring to the flower industry the techniques we have learnt with handling of fresh produce.

Up until a few years ago, flowers were exclusively moved from production country to destination, using airfreight services. With rising oil prices, and the Covid-19 pandemic, airfreight capacity shrunk, and rates increased. This forced the flower industry to take a harder look at sea freight and the technology required to maintain quality for the duration of the voyage.

Liventus have approached this project in two ways.

After Fruit Attraction, the Liventus Team spent a week with Flowerwatch in the Netherlands. They are a well-known company in the industry, with a lot of knowledge and understanding of the flower logistics chain, and that provide a large number of companies with analytical data on the cold chain and advice on how to improve this.

During this visit we also visited the Aalsmeer Auction, processors, retailers, and large receiving facilities. We came away with an immense amount of information, a better understanding of the challenges facing the industry and ideas on where to focus our attention.

Alongside this we have conducted simulation trials in Colombia and learnt a good deal about the responses of flowers to controlled atmosphere. More work is planned in the CA research for the future.

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Lately, we were also part of successful shipments from Mombasa, Kenya to the UAE with consignments of roses and summer flowers under our controlled atmosphere. Another area which we will continue to do further work on.

The research never ends, and we will continue to exhaustively look at atmospheres, packaging solutions and post-harvest treatments to provide an effective means for using sea freight as a mode to move flowers around the world.

Exciting times lie ahead, with new fresh produce and products in need of preservation technologies.