Hi Everyone!
Today, the group started the day bright and early by taking private transportation to Royal FloraHolland. Royal FloraHolland is the largest international floriculture marketplace for flowers and plants. They hold an auction every day, beginning at 6am to sell their growers’ yields. The auction is a 24-hour process. Auctioning and bidding used to be in person, but practices have shifted to online for convenience and global reach. FloraHolland is a cooperative venture belonging to the growers of the flowers and plants. FloraHolland streamlines many farmers’ crops together and creates a large, single platform of trade. This company is the largest of its kind! FloraHolland has thousands of growers from around the world. Their growers’ reach hits 60 countries, with the largest growers being: the Netherlands, Kenya, Ethiopia, Israel, Columbia, Ecuador, Belgium, Italy, and the UK. Something interesting about FloraHolland is that they don’t do any exporting of the flowers and plants themselves, they let their buyers come to them through auctions. Additionally, growers and traders do business directly. The floriculture grind does not stop! Through the life cycle of the plant, the cutting of the plant, the organization, the trolley action, and then the climatized trucks, the product is always on the move and at a fast pace as nobody wants dead, wilted flowers to arrive on their doorstep. After they are sold, the plants or flowers are delivered to the buyer’s workplace at the auction within 90 minutes. Once the delivery process is completed, the next day’s products are already in auction.
While at the Royal FloraHolland we walked on a sky walk throughout the warehouse and got to watch the daily routines. The workers work at such a fast pace, and zoom around on individual carts. The sheer amount of product (flowers and plants) is immense. The warehouse workers have the transportation and procurement down to a science. After we did the walking tour, we got to do a green screen video of us on one of the zooming carts. We finished this experience way ahead of schedule, and headed on to the next place early!
After a 40 minute drive, we arrived at De Tuperij, a tulip and flower farm. At De Tuperij, owners Daan and Anja gave us a tour of the farm and showed us an educational video on the sustainability practices that the farm has. While on the tour, Daan told us about the growing conditions and timeline of his farming. The soil is very wet, due to the sea level, and is very sandy, as that’s what tulips thrive in. Daan showed us a beautiful striped tulip, to which we learned that it was actually sick and that he must remove those tulips to save his yield. Additionally, he taught us about the cross breeding and mixing of tulips to get new colors and variations. He mentioned that he once was in his red tulip field and found an orange tulip, and thus began to grow more uncommon orange tulips, gaining 30% more profit on orange flowers. I learned that De Tuperij does not sell their flowers, but rather their bulbs. After the flowers bloom, the farmers use a machine to take off the flower heads. This deflowering process allows for the plant to concentrate all its energy into making the bulb as strong and healthy as it can. In terms of sustainability, De Tuperij rotates their crops to ensure they do not overuse the soil and they reuse their flower buds in different ways, to prevent as much waste as possible. We also learned that this is De Tuperij’s 97th year in business and is three generations, soon to be four. The entire tulip farm experience was wonderful, the people were so kind, and the sustainable practices were interesting to learn about!
After the tulip farms, we headed back to our hotel and took some well deserved naps. Finally, the group met up for dinner for a traditional Dutch meal at Kop Van Jut. My meal consisted of mashed potatoes, sauerkraut, and dutch sausage with gravy. I thought the meal was quite “Pittsburgh-esque,” and mirrors traditional Pittsburgh dishes.
See You Tomor