The logistical dance that gets all those flowers to market in Europe

Imagine 2,000 trucks being loaded within a 4-hour window at three locations in the Chicago area for overnight delivery by 6 a.m. to cities as far away as Denver, Dallas, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Boston and New York City. You then begin to realize the scale of the world’s largest flower market in the Netherlands.

Every 24 hours, 30 million plants and flowers arrive in Holland from all over the world with most passing through three huge flower auctions, all within a 60 square mile area. The main Royal FloraHolland flower operations are at Aalsmeer, Naaldwijk and Rijnsburg, comprising 1,140 loading docks and covering a 14 million square feet area, equivalent to 243 footballs fields.

Around half the world’s flowers and plants pass through one of the 11 cooperatively-run regional flower auctions in Holland, with buyers and sellers bidding on trading floors just like a typical stock exchange in financial markets. Hence the term, “The Wall Street of Flowers”.

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