We have 20+ years experience and the technical expertise to offer a certified cold chain out of BOG- MDE or UIO and to provide a custom made solution for any flower business.
In the late 90s, working in “the trenches” of 30+ years old air freight logistics- out of Colombia into the world market- we found out, the hard way (paying claims), about the fragility of cold chain, its root causes and state of the art solutions.
We found and tested the vacuum cooling technology already being applied in Guernsey-UK and AMS-NL and had customers proved its value. As an airline operator (at that time) hired the first vacuum cooling service in AMS and applied it to flowers destined to Russia, UK and EU.
Later on, early on 2000, a clear negative trend was noticed in the US market and made it public: the consumer base had shrunk about 25%, from its 1990 levels
The most renowned postharvest researchers met then in Florida and blamed such as the result of a flawed cold chain, from farms to Miami – the initial destination of almost all flower imports into the USA – and emphasized that “(LOW) temperature was more important than speed”.
Eventually, they also surveyed the actual figures, just upon landing on Mother’s day and, as scientists predicted and tested, found that their quality (remaining vase life) was among the poorer (as Valentines) within the year.
The vicious cycle was identified: in those days of the higher consumption (25-30 times the daily average), consumers would buy substandard products at higher prices. The typical US consumer had developed, along many years, the perception of low value (short vase life or high price) which precluded an everyday market.
We realized that the must, in order to SATISFY BOTH NEEDS (i.e.: higher value and lower cost) at the same time, was to develop a consistent cold chain, all year around and especially on the holidays.
That could only arise from a perfected maritime Logistics and an improved air transportation logistics and provided that we were able to avoid damages due to ethylene, botrytis and dehydration.
We setup our first operation in 2001 at the Bogota cargo terminal and have since then serviced all full flights to UK via Martinair and AMS via KLM ,for more than 10 years and also many shippers/importers of flowers and aromatic herbs, through all airlines and to most every country abroad.
We developed and implemented a protocol that proved effective for all the above risks and all species of flowers (including roses, hydrangeas, carnations, chrysanthemums, alstroemerias, etc) to those far away destinations earlier served only by airlines