New Zealand: The UFG Flower Market in Auckland

It's cold and dark outside, but from inside the roller door of the anonymous warehouse in Mt Wellington, colour shines into the dawn. Bundles of bright red tulips, boxes of yellow daffodils, and buckets of white lilies, glow under fluorescent lights. Gerberas are piled high in dozens of colours. The roses have names like avalanche, royal pumpkin, whisky, and Miss Piggy. They were cut on Monday, processed on Tuesday and delivered by the growers overnight. Neatly arranged by length, variety and grower, on hundreds of trolleys that sit in rows on the warehouse, the flowers wait to be sold at the morning's auction.

The flowers arrive from the growers in two shifts. They are delivered to the warehouse between 2pm and 10.30pm the day before, or during the night shift from 3am right up until the auction starts at 6am.

Dictated by season, generally there's a reasonable idea on what is coming and being produced. But what any particular auction will look like, and total supply and varieties is not known until around an hour or so before each auction.

Where New Zealand flowers are available the UFG market doesn't allow imported products to be sold on the auction floor. They do sell imports that aren't produced in New Zealand like Singapore orchids. More than 500 growers from around the country sell their flowers through the UFG auctions each year.

Click here to read the complete article at www.stuff.co.nz.

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