Quality Control upon Arrival
Upon arrival, all boxes were opened and the flowers were checked. This was done in accordance with the VBN-standards. The quality control was done by external staff-members from the VBA (Flower Auction Aalsmeer).
This was done for 2 reasons :
- The flowers were to be sold the following market day on the Aalsmeer-auction.
- To obtain an objective and neutral advice upon the first commercial shipment of flowers on Flower Transport Gel® in order to give both participants, as well as FTG, a final objective report concerning the quality of the flowers shipped.
Besides the 2 VBA-members, staff of FTG Holland and 2 representatives of cut flower importing companies were present to give their objective and professional opinion about the quality of the flowers.
Although there were high expectations towards the arrival of the flowers, special interest was noticed on the roses, as roses are considered to be a highly delicate product to transport maintaining a long lasting vase-life.
All the flowers were marked upon arrival and pictures were taken of each separate variety of each participating company. This was done to get an objective view and to be able to inform each participant about the status of the arrival of his/her flowers. This is a very important issue, as each producing company has its own methods of producing, harvesting and packing. By analysing and evaluating each separate delivered type of flowers for each participant, more conclusions could be drawn in terms of ideal packaging, Pre-cooling and harvesting.
Next on the pictures, a sample of each participant with the registration information like the name, number, variety, location in reefer.
All the flowers were checked for humidity, botrytis, and the freshness of the flower, leaf yellowing and general appearance. Also some flowers were cut in half to see inside the flowers how they survived the journey.
