Cut at the farm
Cut at first light. Hydrated, sleeved, palletised, into the cool room by midday.
02 / SERVICE · LOGISTICS & QUALITY
From your packhouse to Aalsmeer — in 36 hours.
From your packhouse to the Aalsmeer auction floor in 36 hours. Cargo, cold-chain, customs and quality control under one roof.
HOW IT WORKS
Flying flowers is a cold-chain problem dressed up as a freight problem. The plane is the easy part — the four hours either side of the plane are where vase life actually gets won or lost. We own those four hours on both ends.
Origin: our QC team works the packhouse floor in Naivasha, Cayambe and Sebeta. Stems are graded against the order, sleeved against the buyer's bossing spec, palletised against the airline build sheet, and trucked to the airport at 02:00 local. Aalsmeer: our team meets the build at Schiphol, runs customs and phyto in parallel, and has the pallet on a cool-floor truck by 06:00. The first wholesaler usually has the box on their floor by 07:30.
Cold chain stays between +2 and +6 °C from cut to bucket. Vase life delivered: 10-12 days for the standard reds, 14+ for our premium tiers.
THE FLOW
How a week runs.
Airline build
Trucked to JKIA / UIO / ADD. Customs and airline AWB built parallel to the cold-truck arrival.
Schiphol arrival
Pallet lands, our crew meets it on the ramp. Customs + phyto cleared in our bonded facility.
On the auction floor
Live on the clock at 06:00 Aalsmeer time. Direct-account boxes leave for the wholesale floors before 09:00.
QUESTIONS
Good ones to ask.
Which airlines do you use?
Lower-deck cargo on the daily Schiphol turn from JKIA, UIO and ADD — mostly KLM, Astral and Ethiopian. We hold standing build allocations on six rotations a week. Peak season we add charters.
What if a flight is delayed?
Our cool-room at Schiphol absorbs up to 18 hours of delay without measurable vase-life loss. Past 18 hours we re-grade, re-price, and either push the affected boxes to the next clearing or settle with the buyer — whichever they prefer.
Do you handle export documentation?
Yes — phyto certificates, customs declarations and country-of-origin paperwork are bundled into our service. Growers see only the dashboard summary; we keep the originals on file for 7 years per Royal Schiphol customs rules.
Want to see this run for your harvest?
OTHER SERVICES
01 / SERVICE
Commercial agent
We sell your flowers in Europe — daily price-setting, key-account management, and direct relationships with the buyers who matter most.
Read more →03 / SERVICEFinancial bridge
Weekly settlement in EUR. We carry buyer-side risk so growers get paid on time, regardless of what happens at the market.
Read more →