Buying (or expecting) roses for Valentine’s Day? Your long-stems will be among 196 million roses produced for Valentine’s Day (according to Statistic Brain) and, odds are, they’re just off the plane from South America. There’s a small but growing chance, though, that your roses came by ship in a refrigerated container.
As the trade data shows, February is a peak month for US imports of fresh cut roses, most coming from Colombia, which exported $346,611,552 worth of roses last year (part of $1.3 billion in total fresh flower exports).
Roses and other fresh cut flowers are generally flown into the US, where almost two-thirds of all flowers sold are imported. But with the rising costs of air freight, exporters are trying refrigerated containers for roses and other flowers, such as carnations, that can handle the chill.
According to this Wall Street Journal story, the trend is most pronounced in the trade between South American and African exporters shipping to the European market. But a look at our US import bill of lading data shows that containerization has opened an opportunity for Central American exporters – most notably Guatemala’s Exportadora de Flores de Corte – to reach the US market.
Here are the top 5 players on both sides of this trade: