Armed with cucumber and cream cheese sandwiches, we headed off for an early morning visiting Royal Flora Holland. Royal FloraHolland is the largest floriculture marketplace in the world, overseeing daily auctions with more than 100,000 transactions per day. We arrived before 7am, near the beginning of FloraHolland’s early morning auction period. Immediately, we were met with the hustle and bustle of the largest building in Europe, Royal FloraHolland’s auction warehouse. Hundreds of workers operated small vehicles that towed bundles of purchased flowers to their buyers.
What I was most amazed by was the efficiency of this process. We learned that all of the workers have different roles and are guided on what tasks to complete in real time through audio headsets. This showed me the power of logistics and supply chain management firsthand. I can tell that this flower company conglomerate would not have been as successful had they not planned out these systems with accuracy.
For the next part of our day, we traveled towards NDSM, which is a neighborhood north of Amsterdam. It was originally a shipyard, but over the years has been transformed into an oasis of street art and graffiti. I enjoyed seeing NDSM, as it showed a more creative and eccentric side of Amsterdam. While we were there, we went on a tour of a floating community called Schoonschip. Schoonschip residents designed their own homes on the water and are guided by the principles of sustainability and community. I was inspired by their efforts in making their homes carbon neutral and collaborating on an idealistic vision.
Tuesday 5/13/25