Aalsmeer Flower Auction

The Netherlands exports the largest quantity of flowers each year of any country in the world, and last week I headed to FloraHolland’s Alsmeer Flower Auction. This massive complex is like the Wall Street of the flower trade. It is a massive warehouse (and when I say massive I mean massive—it look me and Krystle an hour to walk to one end and back again) with five auction rooms in the middle of the warehouse. The auctions take place everyday starting at about 6:00am and depending on the day last until about 10:00-11:00. The day we went, a Thursday, was considered a slow day so by the time we got there at 9:00am the auctions were over. Have you ever heard the term Dutch auction? Well, that’s what they use at Aalsmeer. The prices start high and get lower and lower until someone says they’ll pay that price. Visitors at the flower auction are led into the warehouse and see everything from above via a skyramp that seems to go on forever. The warehouse was the biggest one I have ever seen, and I’m sure was the size of multiple football stadiums. Everywhere you looked there were metal carts on wheels with flowers sitting on them. People drove around in these little orange pulley cars and would attach themselves to a metal cart, or a row of metal carts, so pull the flowers where they needed to go. From above it looked like you were looking down on an anthill. To get to the end of the warehouse and back to the entrance/exit took Krystle and I about an hour (I told you it was BIG warehouse!) The whole process is amazing—from the time the flowers are cut from their roots in soil they reach the retail shop where they are to be sold in less than 24 hours. The cutting starts the night before at around 5:00pm and then the flowers are brought to the warehouse and put in a refrigeration unit. The next day the auctions start bright and early at 6:00am, and as soon as they are purchased by the lowest highest bidder that bidder’s pully-cart man takes the flowers to that bidder’s truck to be driven to wherever they need to be. The flowers are then flown or shipped or driven to the final location. I kept wondering if the flower shipments we received to the flower shop at which I worked in high school every Wednesday and Saturday were from Aalsmeer…