1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194 
FLOWER POWER
Page 56
Page 58
Page 59
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
The flower and plant market is blossoming in Britain — but the wholesalers don't suffer transport fools gladly.
Tim Maughan reports.
The British spend £1.5bn a year on flowers, and the market is expanding. Many are grown in the UK, most notably in Lincolnshire, Scotland and the Channel Islands, but the majority are imported.They are either flown in from countries as distant as Kenya and Venezuela,or shipped in from the Netherlands Chawston, Beds-based RI Titchmarsh operates six artic reefers, all of them assigned to hauling flowers to RDCs in the South-West, the North-West and South Yorkshire. Director Peter Titchmarsh founded the company in 1965 having graduated from delivering vegetables to shops. In 1991 he was approached by Zwetloots, the Dutch flower wholesaler.to transport its flowers around the UK.
Zwetloots' main British processing plant is located in Blunham, Beds.Titchrnarsh parks up his six trailers at this site but keeps his Sc,ania units back at base.
Seven days a week , each Titchmarsh HGV takes on a single, full load of flowers. His fleet is dedicated to Zwetloots work -no other Firm's goods enter one of his 38-tonners.-We are flower specialists, and we only backload flower trays," he reports."We have no contract; we have a gentleman's agreement with Zwetloots which was made in 1991."
Flowers for Tem
Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas are particularly busy periods. litchmarsh remembers the time 40 fully laden artics left the Blunham plant in a single day -and that was just for Tesco.
In a bid to sell their wares, supermarkets tend to place their eye-catching flowers at the front of their shops. And, as usual, the public takes things for granted. "The flowers are the first things that hit you, but people don't realise where they come from," says Sally, Titchmarsh's daughter.
The flowers come from far afield.but they don't get anywhere near a shop without the heavy lifting capabilities afforded by HGVs, PI Titchmarsh reefers are maintained at a temperature of 3°C. Any higher. or lower, and these delicate goods will spoil.
Two to four bouquets of flowers are transported in buckets, each of which holds 120mm of water to keep the flowers fresh (Titchmarsh transports chrysanthemums, lilies, roses and tulips).The buckets are placed into boxes; a pallet will hold anything from 18 to 36 boxes. Flowers need careful handling For this reason,Titchmarsh's trailers have an internal height of 2.7m, rather than the standard 2.5m. They were specially ordered by Titchmarsh, and made by Schmitz Cargobull.
It's not simply a matter of maintaining a temperature of 3°C: it is important that air circulates throughout the trailer, he stresses, so the extra 200mm of reefer space is vital.
"The priority is service, and looking after the product," says Titchmarsh. Unlike, say, handling aluminium sheets, this is not as straightforward as it sounds. "Flowers are not the most robust goods to carry," Sally adds, "The slightest knock can damage them — and if they are damaged the supermarket will not accept them."
Martin Beecham oversees a 12-strong HGV fleet. which is also dedicated to hauling flowers. But he works at the opposite end of the supply chain toTitchmarsh, as general manager, European development, at Gist.
This is an Anglo-Dutch transport operation —British-owned, but Dutch-registered. Gist trucks collect flowers from the Westland region of Holland and drop their reefer trailers at ports, from where the unaccompanied trailers are ferried across the North Sea. Six trucks run in England and six in the Netherlands.The trucks operating in Britain collect the trailers from Felixstowe and Harwich.
Like litchmarch, Gist serves the wholesalers directly; in this case Intergreen, which is another Dutch firm.
Each of Beecham's HGVs has a maximum 24,000kg payload. but the light nature of the products means that a typical load weighs just 9,000kg.The high-volume/low-weight nature of the loads seems perfect for drawbar combination work and Gist did used to run them, but not any more. "They have a height advantage [over artic reefers] but they lack flexibility. If they break down they can be hard to replace, and they also mean higher ferry costs."
Most of the 12 reefers are equipped with moveable bulkheads. One section, kept at 2-5°C, contains flowers; the other, at 12-15°C, contains plants.
"We collect plants from flower packers, growers, and auctions every single day," says Beecham."July is a quiet month, but Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Christmas and Easter are busy."
Supermarket flower promotions, which can happen any time of the year. also mean an increase in activity.
Gist drops flowers to Intergreen's sites in Holbeach,near Spalding, and Bicker. near Boston. From these sites Gist and other operators deliver them to Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer's.
Tesco's and Asda RDCs.
The Holbeach site requires a constant supply of flowers."We must be very close to the retail order system; if orders come in this morning for Tesco, we must be ready to book a ferry so we can respond to the workload," Beecham explains. Like Titchmarsh's loads, Gist's flowers are transported in water.Titch marsh's flowers, however, are sorted and pack aged before transit. Gist's are not.
After delivery at the Holbeach plant the flowers pass through a production line,just like manufactured products.The sheds contain conveyor belts, robotic arms... and a lot of leaves and petals.
It is vital that the trailers keep the flowers in the right condition. "The flowers need water to survive, and it must be kept at the right temperature," says Beecham."As long as it is, we can maintain them in a reefer. But it is a misconception that a reefer can change water temperature.The water has to be at the correct temperature before it goes in the trailer."
Gist personnel work within the Holbeach site. and perform an internal transport operation without trucks. Aside from the actual sorting process Gist ensures flowers are brought to the lines; after they have been sorted they are dispatched to the loading bays for transit.
Intergreen's Holbeach dispatch bay teems with boxes. Each supermarket adopts a certain style of box. Some contain small flowers; others hold six-foot-tall shrubs.
Volumes change dramatically. Valentine's Day doubles the demand for flowers, but Mother's Day is the big one: it is D-Day in the flower calendar. In the run-up to the big day, plant and flower volumes rocket by 500%.
Support from the group
To cater for this massive increase Beecham's fleet is augmented by trucks from other parts of the Gist group.Additionally, drops are made directly to RD Cs, with flowers by-passing the production line altogether. Gist trucks (not Beecham's dozen) also pick flowers up from Stansted. Heathrow and ManchesterAirports; they deliver flowers from Spain, too.
Since 1992 the UK flower and plant market has enjoyed a year-on-year growth of 15%, and it's still growing.To take on all this work, Beecham reveals that six trucks are to join his existing dozen within the next six months.
Operators can benefit from the growth of the flower and plant market, but there can be no room for complacency Intergreen demands a lot from Beecham.All Gist deliveries are recorded and scrutinized by the customer on a weekly basis, and the HGV fleet must be punctual 99.8% of the time. "If you have service level failures they are soon highlighted, and if we failed we would be hauled over the coals," he remarks.
Expansion of the market leads to more cash sloshing around. But Beecham stresses that this doesn't mean the flower producers will become complacent.As in other sectors, the flower people will continue to scrutinize every aspect of their operation, transport included. Efficiency in every link of the chain is essential if the operation is to remain profitable.
Operators who serve this market have their work cut out, and Beecham's tone is serious. But the heavy tone lifts when he reminds us what he actually transports. "It's interesting, because we deal with living products," he says. •