Floriculture transport

Transporting floriculture products is always a job for specialists. These living, fragile products must be handled with care. Floricultural growers are outsourcing this important task with increasing frequency. Most floriculture products are transported by road. Most products from outside Europe are transported by air. There are also several initiatives which use sea and rail transport.

Air transport

Air freight is extremely important for suppliers from countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia.

Various airlines fly flowers daily from a range of places directly to Schiphol (AMS) or airports like Luik (LGG), Maastricht (MST), and Frankfurt (FRA). Royal FloraHolland suppliers primarily use freight forwarders. They are logistics service providers that organise the air freight for the Royal FloraHolland suppliers.

Road transport

Regarding road transport, Royal FloraHolland deals with two target groups, namely National Transport and International Transport.

National transport is provided by 70 carriers (collective). They rent lock plates mostly under their own name to offer you as supplier or buyer an optimal logistics service provision for and with Royal FloraHolland.

International transport involves 200 companies that are commissioned by buyers to provide transport. Some 40 companies have a customer number at Royal FloraHolland, allowing them to use e.g. CC-containers under their own name. International carriers can be Dutch companies or originate from the country being delivered to. A number of international transporters are commissioned by our suppliers in European countries, like Danish, Italian and Portugese suppliers.

TLN is the industry association for goods transport and logistics service provision. The Association of Floriculture Transporters (VSV) is an independent association under the flag of TLN. Its members are specialised transport companies in the collective floricultural transport sector and form a network of experts.

Sea transport

Transport by sea is still not very common in the horticultural sector. A great deal of experience may have been already gained with decorative green products, but that is not the case for other products. We don't have enough knowledge to guarantee quality, especially when shipping times are longer than two weeks. That needs to change. Therefore, we and our partners are investing in the knowledge development of transporting horticultural products by sea. In addition, we are carrying out pilot projects leading to the drafting of protocols for each product group.