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Extra Features and Video Online FloristsReview.com R E A D O N L I N E 31 for color, uniformity and stem length before being individually wrapped and bunched." Graded flowers spend up to eight hours in cold hydration after being meticulously wrapped in bunches, with cards identifying their diligent handlers. e bunches are then boxed with labels identifying the customers. e sealed boxes are held in refrigeration until they leave for Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport. e perishable clock is ticking, but slowly. Cold Chain Flowers rely on their parent plants to photosynthesize food and provide life-giving water to the blooms. Once the cut is made, a flower must be hydrated quickly and then survive on foliage-stored food until supplemented again. Azout's garden roses, like many flowers, are shipped dry but cold. Maintaining the cold chain is the industry's keystone to flower freshness. At 33 F to 35 F, a flower's metabolism slows to a crawl. e chilly (but not freezing) temperatures induce a hibernation-like state that slows the rate of food consumption and aging of the flowers. Violating the industry's cold-chain protocol can be costly and, occasionally, uncontrollable. Unfavorable weather conditions, flight delays, loading docks and airport tarmacs are all opportunities for temperature lapses. "Above 38 F, the rate of decline accelerates rapidly," Azout assures. But the cut-flower industry is finely tuned to perform cool, swift handoffs. Refrigerated trucks deliver Alexandra Farms' flower boxes to Bogotá's airport, bound for Miami International Airport. Colombia alone sends 17 planeloads of cut flowers into Miami every day, six days a week. Most arrive on dedicated cargo planes, but many, especially from other parts of the world, travel in the underbelly of passenger flights. A Sudden Stop Azout's roses, along with the other 40,000 boxes of cut flowers imported to the U.S. each day, make one requisite refrigerated stop: a visit with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. For 90 percent of U.S. cut- flower imports, that's in Miami, where agricultural specialists inspect billions of blooms annually (1 billion from Colombia alone) looking for insects and diseases that could spread to American crops. While only a small number of pests are discovered each year, the threat is real and potentially significant. No stone goes unturned. Peak import times ahead of Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, or other logistical troubles, can delay inspection. While shipments await their turn in gigantic basketball-court- size coolers, the perishability clock is still slowly ticking away. On the Move Again Once approved through customs, usually within eight to 12 hours, the boxed floral bottleneck flows rapidly to Miami's many expectant importers. Many of these conglomerates own and/or partner with international farms to import and distribute to American wholesalers. "Every step in the distribution process adds value," says Mario Vicente, general manager of Miami importer Fresca Farms. "Importers are a one- stop-shop, aggregating multitudes of flowers from all over the world and providing important quality control so that customers receive only the finest-quality flowers." And it happens in a flash. Once flowers are cleared through customs, importers quickly collect their shipments, break down the multi- source boxes and inventory the whole lot—all in refrigerated facilities. Within 24 hours, flowers are shuffled to meet order demand and loaded back on to refrigerated trucks bound for wholesalers across the country. "If all goes well, an order sold on Monday can be delivered to a wholesaler in New York by ursday," Azout reports. Arranged Delivery Alexandra Farms' garden roses are shipped immediately from Miami to wholesalers across the U.S. But some more-common flowers spend an extra day onsite at an importer or bouquet operation, to be recut, arranged and wet packed for supermarkets and other customers. "Our wet-pack operation serves customers of all sizes—really anyone who wants to save on labor costs and do more volume," Vicente states.

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