Category: Flower Facts

Ever wonder where those beautiful roses you get every year for Valentine’s Day come from? Frankly, so did we.

Petal Talk went straight to two flower experts who know more than anyone about the journey a rose takes — from the farm to the hands of your loved ones: Kevin Cochran, vice president of procurement at 1-800-Flowers.com, and Katya Chaparro, director of quality assurance at 1-800-Flowers.com.

Here are some highlights from our conversation. (Some portions have been edited for clarity and brevity.)

How are our roses harvested on the farm?

Kevin Cochran: On an average day of production, the farm workers in Colombia get out to the farms at first light, 5 or 6 a.m., and start cutting. They’re really experts. The crew makes sure the leaves are healthy, and then they make the cut, put them in a basket, take them to post-harvest immediately. There, they bring them down to temperature and get them hydrated. That’s the best thing they can do.

Only the premium, best-quality [roses] in terms of freshness and spec get put into the bouquet operation. The bouquet operation is where we have people at the farm level for when those stems come in and get hydrated. They get brought down to a temperature that ensures a lengthy vase life. Typically, that’s 34-35 degrees. The cold chain is the most important thing to ensure the quality of stems throughout the journey.

After they’re hydrated, they’re packed in a multi-pack box, palletized, and stacked.

Where do the roses go once they leave the farm?

Kevin: They’re sent to the Bogota airport, typically around 6 or 7 o’clock at night of the same night they were harvested. There, they’re processed, and the planes take off about 10, 11 p.m. They fly overnight and land in Miami at about 4 or 5 a.m. Then, they go through U.S. Customs.

From the airplane to the cooler, there’s about a 50-yard stretch that’s super important because Miami’s warm. It’s not as bad around Valentine’s Day, but most days the heat is more severe. It’s really important that those roses get into the cooler very quickly. When you heat up densely packed flowers, their metabolic clocks start ticking. It’s kind of like an engine revving — you have to slow it down, and you have to do it very carefully and quickly; if you don’t, you start getting respiration and dehydration. Respiration means condensation, which means botrytis (a plant fungus), mildew, and things like that. It’s all about the temperature.  

So, the first thing we do after the flowers go through customs is pre-cool them. We get the temperature back down to about 34 degrees and then store them. Literally, we’re talking a day or two from when they’re cut from the rose plant at the farm (to this stage).

Typically, we hold them for a day (in Miami), and then we’ll ship them to our fulfillment centers over the next day. Then, as soon as they get there, they start going out the door.

We’re talking about a really short window to get from Point A to Point B.  

Tell us about your quality-control procedures.

Kevin: Katya is very focused on the key parameters that really make the difference in quality. No. 1, you have to start off with the right specs, freshness, and varieties.

Katya has a stringent process whereby she tests rose varieties. Anything new that we want to bring on, she tests it in a laboratory in Miami to make sure it passes our strict protocols as far as shelf life/vase life and can go through our supply chain.

Katya Chaparro: We ask the farm to assign a group of people who are familiar with our specifications. And we have an inspector who comes in to visit the farms. We provide very detailed specifications: the varieties they can use, bouquet length, bouquet construction, and all the recipes.

Our differentiator is the details. It’s our standard operating procedures and the specifications that we provide to the farms. We follow up every single day in Miami, in Bogota, and in every other place of inspection. And consistent quality is the result.

What happens if you encounter a shipment that is not up to your standards?

Kevin: Letting something get through (that is below our standards) is going to tarnish our reputation, and the next time the farms will know they can get away with it. We have to maintain a tight line. That’s why Katya is in procurement. She’s really the authority when it comes to what passes and what goes. The buck stops with Katya.   

Katya: Every month, the distribution centers or fulfillers receive a document prepared by us so that when they receive the flowers, they know what to check as they inspect. It includes the recipe, bouquet length, bouquet construction, and whether it needs to be hydrated. During the holidays, the document also includes pre-approved substitutions developed by our vendor relations, product development, and QA teams.

What’s the difference between quality control at 1-800-Flowers.com and a grocery store?

Kevin: I came from a brick-and-mortar store, and we would ship flowers in and put them on display. Then the customer grabs the flowers and goes to the cash register point of sale to buy. It’s the same bouquet they picked up from the display.  

In our business, the point of sale is on the website. The customer sees an image of a bouquet and then we have to replicate it all the way through the supply chain to wow the customer with the exceptional quality at the delivery. We can’t leave anything to chance. We have to be very specific about anything that can impact quality.

How are you able to meet demand in the lead-up to Valentine’s Day?

Kevin: The harvest is a bell curve. It ramps up, peaks, and comes down.

At the farms we’re working with, the peak of the bell curve (for Valentine’s Day) is the first or second of February. So, you’re looking at about seven days prior to that and seven days after that for that bell curve to take place. All the volume for the industry ships within those days.  

We come in at the top of the curve, which is when the most production is. We do that because if you get too much in the front, you’ll start getting aged flowers.

We get the bulk of our supply on the back side of the curve, and then we capitalize on it. We want the freshness.

We’re getting the freshest pick within the bulk of the production. We’re getting the first pick of the best quality, and we do that by getting orders in very early and coming to the table with a culture that demands quality.

How important are relationships in the flower business?

Kevin: Our company’s mission is to help people build more meaningful relationships. The supply chain is the same thing. The supply chain for floral is a small circle of farmers compared with something like the auto industry. It’s all about managing relationships.

Jim and Chris [McCann] do a great job of making sure our relationships are long term. You look at how long Jim and Chris have known Herbert Jordan at The Queen’s Flowers  – 30 or 35 years. I’ve worked with him since 1993. Katya has a similar tenure.

These relationships are real long term. You walk into a building, and people know you by what you’ve done over the past 30 years. And the big thing about us is that quality presence. They know that we’re going to be talking quality before we talk cost. When things get tough, when things get hard, it falls back on the reputations of the people who are buying and the companies they are buying for. The reality is relationships and reputation mean a lot in this industry.

From the Americas and Europe to Africa and Asia, millions of roses are cultivated every year for Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, and every occasion big and small. It’s a painstaking process as each plant must mature for as many as five years before it’s ready to produce a bloom that’s sellable in a store or usable by a florist.

But not all roses are created equal. Even those on a fully mature plant may not be suitable for a bouquet. Some may bloom too early or blossom into a disappointingly small flower. Other roses may look perfect, only to wilt in a vase after just a day.

How do you pick a perfect rose? “No. 1, you start off with the right specs, the right freshness, and the right varieties,” says Kevin Cochran, vice president of procurement at 1-800-Flowers.com.

Cochran’s team is responsible for buying and ensuring the quality of millions of flowers each year. In the weeks leading up to Valentine’s Day in 2023, 1-800-Flowers.com will ship millions of roses – a number that will be topped only by Mother’s Day in May.

With such volumes, finding the perfect rose is no simple task. Cochran and team must manage a supply chain that begins with flower farms a continent away and ends with the delivery of a beautiful bouquet and a smile. The key to ensuring everything goes right — with the specs, the freshness, and the varieties — is having the right relationships.

“Our company’s mission is to help people develop more meaningful relationships, and do the same with our farmers,” Cochran says. “It’s all about building relationships over the long term.”

A reputation for quality roses

The perfect rose doesn’t happen by accident. It’s the result of countless choices, observations, and tests. The first step: Determining which of the estimated 30,000 cultivated varieties will perform best for demanding customers.

To that end, 1-800-Flowers.com has developed a long list of demanding specifications that it shares with the farms. The proprietary checklist — built from nearly 50 years of experience in the industry — includes everything from the dimensions of the stem and petal count to the color and appearance of the bud.

That list is shared with the handful of farms the company relies on for its flowers — and it’s enforced by a team led by Katya Chaparro, director of quality assurance at 1-800-Flowers.com.  Together, Chaparro and Cochran have over 30 years in the industry.   

“You walk into a building, and people know you by what you’ve done over the past 30 years,” Cochran says. “And the big thing about Katya — and I would hope me, too — is that quality presence. They know that we’re going to be talking quality before we talk cost.”

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A rose’s journey on the farm

Finding the perfect rose begins on the farm. For 1-800-Flowers.com’s roses, that means a handful of large farms located high in the Andes on a plateau outside Bogota, Colombia. It’s the perfect environment for growing roses despite occasional weather and political challenges.

With the farms aware of Cochran’s and Chaparro’s specifications and everyone in agreement on the varieties, the roses are planted. And then everyone waits for the plants to mature.

Unlike with other flowers, humans can control the plants’ productivity. In advance of a seasonal peak like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day, they can boost the number of flowers by snipping them off when they emerge. This process, called pinching, causes the plant to generate even more buds.

When production finally begins, crews begin by assessing each stem and picking the ones that meet the stringent specifications. They typically begin work at 6 a.m., just as the sun is rising.

“At first light, they start cutting, and they’re really experts,” Cochran says. “The crew is looking to make sure the leaves are healthy. They’re going to make that cut, put it in a basket, take it to post-harvest immediately, bring it down to temperature, and get it hydrated.”

From snip to ship

The farmers’ assessment of each stem is only the first inspection. In the post-harvest stage, the roses are cooled, examined, graded, and sorted by the growers’ inspectors and experts from 1-800-Flowers.com.

“When we see something in Colombia that is not according to specifications, we reject it and the farm has to replace the flowers that are not compliant with the procedures,” says Chaparro, who works in Miami but often travels to Colombia, where she grew up.

What happens to flowers that don’t meet spec? “They sell it for pennies at markets in downtown Bogota,” Cochran says.

For those that remain, two things are critical: hydration and temperature. The stems are quickly placed in a solution that ensures freshness, stops bacteria and halts any six-legged visitors in their tracks. And they’re also cooled to an appropriate temperature to ensure that freshness lasts for as long as possible.

“When you warm up packed flowers, all those little metabolic clocks start ticking,” Cochran says. “It’s kind of like an engine revving that you must slow down. You have to do it very carefully, and you have to do it quickly.”

Maintaining the cold chain

A consistently low temperature is critical as the flowers make their way from Colombia to Miami. Cochran and Chaparro refer to the supply chain as the “cold chain,” which means keeping the blooms at around 35 degrees.

Before the flowers leave the farm, they’re carefully wrapped and then packed in boxes that are loaded onto pallets and then stacked. The day’s shipments typically arrive at the Bogota airport around 7 p.m. — by which time the heat of the day has passed.

Overnight, they fly on cargo jets to Miami, another location not known for cool temperatures. Fortunately, the timing works out so they arrive before the sun rises. Within minutes, U.S. Customs inspectors check the shipments for bacteria, insects, and other issues.

And then there’s Chaparro, who is peeling away boxes from pallets and inspecting the contents for any deviation from the agreed-upon specifications.

“A long time ago, I rejected 800 boxes from one farm during Valentine’s Day,” she recalls. “That is not the case anymore. The farms know they have to pay for it, and it’s a lot of money.” 

The roses are typically stored for a day in a cooled facility, where they’re consolidated. Before long, they’re shipped in refrigerated trucks to fulfillment centers across the country.

“Literally, we’re talking a day or two from when they’re cut from the rose plant at the farm,” Cochran says. “We’re talking about a really short window to get the flowers from Point A to Point B.”

Continuing the rose’s journey

At the fulfillment centers, flowers are checked yet again before they’re shipped. And then attention turns to customers and the feedback they provide.

Some customers report their flowers are wrapped in plastic. Cochran explains that it’s a sign of freshness. “Those roses came directly from the farms to the airport,” he says. “They haven’t been handled by middlemen. They’re just straight from the farm.”

Other times, customers note what’s called “mechanical damage,” such as broken stems. This is caused by incorrect handling at some point in the supply chain, whether it’s the final delivery or packaging at the farm. In any case, problems are quickly identified and rectified.

This commitment to quality makes 1-800-Flowers.com stand out and ensures that it delivers millions of smiles on Valentine’s Day as well as the other 364 days of the year.

“I would say the big difference is in the detail of our standard operating procedures and the specifications that we provide to the farms,” Chaparro says. “We follow up every single day in Miami, in Bogota, or in every other place of inspection. And consistent quality is the result. That’s the key, and that’s the difference.”