DHL said it was preparing to deliver record numbers of fresh flowers in the USA for Valentine’s Dayon Wednesday.
The Deutsche Post carrier expects to deliver retail orders, many of them via the Internet,for over 10 million individual flower stems, most of them cultivated by growers in Colombia andEcuador.
“We’re seeing powerhouses in the floral industry as well as niche floral companies rely moreon DHL as an important part of their floral distribution network,” said John Cameron, executivevice-president (operations).
“DHL provides these businesses with the operational flexibility, capacity and specialhandling required to make this special Valentine’s Day holiday a success,” added Cameron.
DHL Global Forwarding, part of the logistics arm of DHL, will be exporting four times itsnormal volume of flowers from Latin America for Valentine’s Day, protecing them by using bondedcold storage facilities.
Eighty percent of floral shipments are destined for Miami, from where DHL has organiseddedicated “Valentine’s” flights and leveraged an expanded fleet of refrigerated trucks to transportflower shipments to its air and ground hub in Wilmington, Ohio. They will be sorted overnight andflown out to loved ones in time for the 14th, DHL said.
