How to keep the flowers fresh in the hands of lovers?

Today is Tanabata Valentine's Day, and Tanabata Valentine's Day has also formed its own "Tanabata Economy". The young couples are in high spirits, and the merchants are also shouting vigorously. The whole world is showing love, but few people know the story behind this flower. If there is no cold chain logistics, I'm afraid couples all over the street can only go shopping and watch movies with pillows.

The transportation forms of flower products are various, including those with pots and bare roots. At all growth stages of plants, growers should remember that plants should be as healthy as possible from the moment flower products leave the greenhouse until they reach their final destination. Besides the weather, the biggest challenge is transportation, that is, how to keep plants healthy during transportation.

In order to care for more and more precious flowers, the modes of transportation of "flowers" are constantly upgrading, from car express to air transportation, from "naked delivery" to cold chain logistics and refrigerated distribution.

So how to "save"? First of all, let's understand how foreign flowers are logistics.

Waterway transportation is the international trend of flower transportation mode. The Netherlands is the first country to implement the water transport mode, and has basically realized water transport at present. In recent years, the transportation of flowers with water has been rapidly popularized in Japan. "Stones from other mountains can attack jade", hoping to give some enlightenment to the development of domestic water transport.

Dutch Kelixian made a detailed study on cold chain water transportation. The results show that the water transportation of flowers must be systematic, that is, every link such as production, auction, traders, transportation and flower shops must be connected with water, otherwise, as long as one link is dehydrated, the water transportation of other links will lose its meaning, and the water transportation of all links is absolutely the best guarantee for the quality of flowers. Practitioners have formed good knowledge and habits from the production to sales of the Dutch flower kingdom. As far as each kind of flower products is concerned, as long as most flowers can breathe normally during transportation, the water content of flowers can meet the physiological needs of plants in a short time, but if the time is prolonged, the quality will be reduced and losses will be faced. European flower shops have high requirements on the quality of flower products, and the products themselves are also of high value, so it is difficult for them to accept such losses. The biggest advantage of water transportation is that it can achieve zero loss. Coupled with the high labor cost in Europe, water transportation saves the labor force of wholesale and terminal retail to a great extent, and the environmental benefits of water transportation are also in line with the direction of social development and are more easily recognized by everyone. Taking all factors into consideration, the Netherlands chooses automobile cold chain waterway transportation as the main mode of transportation.

The cold chain transportation of flowers with water in Japan originated from the Netherlands, but unlike Europe, Japan mainly adopts "dry shooting" (without water). Water transportation is not popular in Japan, where the flower industry is highly developed, and it is limited to some products and some bases to the market. The distance from various processing plants to supermarkets and flower shops has basically popularized cold chain water transportation. According to flower packaging containers, there are three main modes of transportation of cut flowers in Japan, namely, dry carton transportation, wet carton transportation and wet barrel transportation. The latter two modes, especially the last one, have developed rapidly in recent years. Wet bucket transportation is divided into two categories, namely, bound bucket and open bucket. In order to prevent the buds or plants from colliding with each other during transportation, the upper part of the tied barrel is still surrounded by cardboard to fix the upper part of the flowers. However, due to the different specifications of bundled barrels used by different manufacturers, it is difficult to recycle barrels, and the output of waste paper board is not low. There are also many difficulties in promoting water transport in Japan: the biggest difficulty is cost control. If the price of flowers can be guaranteed in Japan, the problem of water transportation will be well popularized. Secondly, the recovery of vehicles with water needs special on-site personnel to operate. Thirdly, the balance of interests between water transport and cold chain transport needs to be considered. Many people in the Japanese industry believe that with cold chain transportation, water transportation is not needed in many cases. In addition, flowers in Japan are mainly imported, and some products are produced by themselves, with few exports. However, the domestic logistics system in Japan is quite developed, which is quite different from that in China. The whole flower market in Japan can basically achieve the next-day arrival of products, with short logistics time and no urgent demand for water transportation.

Due to the lack of cold chain logistics conditions in China, air transportation with the least transportation time and the highest efficiency is generally chosen for flower transportation in the flower industry. Why should Yihua give up air transportation? It turns out that there are many problems in the process of air transportation of flowers.

First, it needs to be loaded and unloaded three times, two of which are controlled by freight forwarding companies, and the loading and unloading standards and quality are out of control. At least three kinds of losses will be caused during loading and unloading.

Second, the temperature and humidity change dramatically. Even if flowers are not in a low-temperature environment, as long as they are kept at a constant temperature, the preservation effect will be better than that in a low-temperature, high-temperature and alternating cold and hot environment. This difference will lead to dehydration of flowers, which will greatly affect the quality and life of flowers.

Third, the transportation time is unstable. If there is air traffic control or cargo dumping, flowers need to bear more "torture" to reach their destination.

In this way, the loss of flower materials will be smaller: there is only one loading and unloading process, and the internal loading and unloading standards of Yihua are strictly implemented, and the product loss rate can be reduced to1%; Professional support for pre-cooling treatment, refrigerated transportation and refrigerated cooling equipment for flowers of origin; Cold chain transportation reduces intermediate loading and unloading links, one loading and unloading and two sorting, and reduces mechanical damage and flower material loss. Compared with the traditional transportation, such as rough extrusion and middle box handling, it reduces the loss rate and ensures better flower quality.

Flowers are fresher: the whole process of constant temperature, humidity and pressure can prolong the flowering period by up to 3 days; The cold transportation system can monitor the temperature and humidity during long-distance transportation, and the temperature and humidity values are also based on international industry standards. The research report of the Flower Countermeasure Room of the Flower Wholesale Market Association of Japan's Ministry of Agriculture shows that the suitable transportation temperature of most fresh cut flowers is 0.5℃ to 2℃, while the precooling temperature is 0℃ to 1℃, and the relative humidity is 95% to 98%. Compared with non-low temperature air transportation, it ensures the freshness of flower materials to the maximum extent.

Time controllable: the land transportation time is controllable, and the flowers can arrive safely according to the planned time.

Therefore, our domestic flower logistics is mainly cold chain logistics, and there is also a very important link, that is, flower refrigeration. After picking each flower, it needs to be precooled for half an hour, then it needs to be disinfected and other "post-harvest treatment", and then it is sorted and packaged, and then it is put into the cold storage for 12 hours, so that the flower can be cooled to the heart, and then it can reach the "dormant" state, so that the flower will not bloom ahead of time and will be fresh when delivered to customers.

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