The most effective way is the spot-check quality control of flowers before departure. Usually we outsource quality control services and ask their quality control inspectors to make a sample check at the refrigerator warehouse of the cargo agency.

What is being checked?

• Flowers from farms that have not been inspected for a long time;
• Orders from clients who requested quality control of their orders in advance;
• Flowers from farms that offer some particular varieties in large quantities;
• Varieties sold at suspiciously low prices that stand out against the general flower market situation.

If 10-15 clients have indicated a farm as their preferred one, they constantly purchase it and are satisfied, then there is no need to check it.

What flower standards have to be checked by quality control before flower cargo departure?

• Temperature inside the flower boxes when loading them out from the farm truck to cargo agency refrigerator warehouse (recorded in delivery-receipt document);
• Flowers’ temperature at refrigerator warehouse of cargo agency at the moment of inspection
• Buds opening stage (roses, carnations, alstroemeria); and the buds’ size;
• Thickness of the stems, and even when opening some bunches, whether the stems are straight;
• Freshness of flowers, condition and color of foliage (leaves)
• Botrytis or rotting hazards;
• Mechanical damages of the boxes or buds;
• Packaging quality (bunches fixation in the box);
• Humidity inside boxes with flowers.

Boxes of doubtful quality are sent back to the farms. Quality control reports are documented and accompanied by photos. If the customer still has a spare day for the purchase, missing varieties rejected by quality control are purchased later and the order is completed in full

Quality control with visits to farms is less effective, since the farms can get ready for such a visit, they can eliminate or hide the existing problems themselves. It should also be noted that in one day our special employee manages to travel around no more than 2-3 farms

The way to control the flower quality before departure is suitable for Ecuadorian and Kenyan farms (Ecuadorian and Kenyan cargo agencies only). In Colombia, there are certain access restrictions at the preflight area of the airport, and farms deliver their boxes to the airlines (not to the cold rooms of the cargo agencies) right before the flight departure. Therefore, in Colombia quality control will not work without visiting farms.

Equally efficient is an indirect approach to ensuring flower quality control through our web-based or app-based (iOS/Android) system of preferences and prohibitions. Customers can determine themselves the current quality rating of the variety grown on a particular farm when choosing and ticking super positions “variety-farm” as preferable ones, or prohibiting some of the positions. Obviously, if many customers simultaneously ask to purchase a variety from certain top-priority farms, it means we may go ahead with the purchase, this variety will be of the perfect quality.

Our managers are keenly aware of the fact that if the customer stays dissatisfied with the flower quality he/she will never send new orders. Customer contentment is the top priority for our team and a key for securing future orders.

Upon customer’s request we may arrange a service of regular quality control of flowers before flight departure. The cost of this service is from USD 5 per box (1HB/1QB/1EB). The customer receives a detailed quality inspection photo report of each box examined