TRUE. today

Combining teaching and branding is a little more complicated than anticipated. On Thursday afternoon (Nov. 27) I left the Scala College at the end of the afternoon, embarking the Interliner bus to catch flight Delta 39 the next morning, changing onto Delta 311 in Atlanta and arrived by taxi at the Bogota hotel 22 hours after leaving home. 33 Hours later I set off for the reverse trip, stepping out of the Interliner next to the Scala College Monday morning at 8.45 a.m., in time to continue teaching at 9.10 a.m. Feeling like a zombie that long Monday and being hit badly by 'the man with the hammer', as we say in Dutch, at the end of the week. Not until today have I found some time to inform the TRUE. followers. Just for being with Excellence for one day. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

When working for Preesman, I would disagree with the owner, Pim, who argued that such a trip can only be effective if you would stay for more than ten days. Now, in 12 hours, we looked into the details of the cultivation, harvesting, farm logistics, grading, bunching, packing, cooling and transport of the roses and also relaxed at Pablo's new house near the fire place and dinner table with his wife Andrea and son Pablo Jr, enjoying Pablo's baby beef and wine. A TRUE. day.

I could not wait to get into the greenhouse to see the plants. No, after the drive from the centre of Bogota to the farm in El Rosal first the traditional coffee in the office, where we were joined by Luis Ernesto. He brought in the rain chart of this year. Normally, Bogota has 2-3 month periods with rain, followed by similar periods of drought. This year, rain since April, meaning too much moisture in the greenhouses, postharvest, flower boxes, with spores of botrytis all around.

These spores become visible after transport, so after arriving with the florist, or even later, with the consumer. The brown spots will give brown petals, rotting flowers and often stems, causing flower heads to fall off. So, something to fight in the cultivation by spraying and after harvesting by submerging in a special bath. For this, good biological products are available and used, but giving residu on the foliage. Harmless, yet looking dirty.

From a competitive point of view, if a concern for Excellence, this was a major problem for the rest of the Savanna. Still, TRUE. flowers must be spotless and, being harvested with flowers more open than others, more susceptible. After this introduction and two mugs of coffee and cookies, time to go and have a look. The bridge from the office took us to a platform in the postharvest in which the workers were just starting their twice-daily yoga lessons for back, arms and shoulders. This is where the botrytis and vaselife tests are carried out for each shipment and each variety, overlooked by Amanda from her little office. The vase of Da Vinci Rose looked the best of all, alle flowers fully open. Yet, closer inspection showed bits of botrytis here and there. Not good enough. Not TRUE.

Finally, we entered the house with the plants.

Beautiful. I was impressed.

Next, the female supervisor for the cultivation was fetched to discuss the botrytis issue. She suggested we put in small heating lamps, as they did with other varieties that were susceptible. We went to see some of the houses of these varieties, some of them notorious for botrytis, and, indeed, perfect. Next week the lamps would be installed.

Onto the postharvest. From the beds to the building I observed all activities with flowers in detail. More so than I had ever done in visiting flower farms for more than fifteen years. Roses and Blooms had informed me, complete with pictures, that the last box of flowers had arrived with them in Manhattan in damaged condition and my conclusion from the description and the pictures was that there had been excess damage of the foliage (handling and packing) and shifting of the flowers in the box (packing? transport?).

The potential TRUE. flowers were brought in from the cooler, carefully graded and then made into a bunch by the lady supervisor of the postharvest under the eyes of Pablo, Luis Ernesto, German and myself. The finished bunch was then proudly presented to me by the Excellence management. "Okay, can I now be a New York florist, receiving the flowers?" Upon which I carefully opened the bunch, taking out all protective packing materials, then showing the flowers one by one. The proud looks turned into shocked faces. Only 4 out of 20 flowers had foliage that was sufficiently intact. Another bunch, made earlier was fetched out of the cooler and opened with the same results. It could be that the leaves of this variety were more fragile than others. Therefore a bunch of their top variety Freedom was dissembled. Likewise.

Having had the same experience a year ago in Ecuador, I had already seen what went wrong in the bunching. Whereas everybody was focused on the arrangement of the flower heads and the bunch as a whole, I had seen, that stems were added to the bunch without paying attention to the foliage. The leaves of a rose are positioned slightly upward, but when the head is put on the other heads, most of the time the flower is moved upward a little bit, so that the leaves fold back slightly, to break when the stems are pressed down.

First proud ...

... then worried

You could see them thinking: "Why did we never notice? Why didn't our clients tell us? But then, why do we get such good prices? We must also be doing sufficiently right, then." I explained, that their operation was set to their clients, being wholesalers in the U.S.A., Europe and Russia. Wholesalers buy flowers per box and judge them per bunch. If by chance they put flowers in a vase, they always do so per bunch. Excellence bunches are excellent. But TRUE. roses are judged by perfection and sold per stem. Florists also sell other varieties per stem, but because their voices are seldom heard and this is the way it has always been, they just search for a good one in a bunch or cover up the absent foliage.

Their confidence restored, they instantly picked up the challenge and by the end of the afternoon German and Luis Ernesto reappeared with the plan to build a special cart in which the flowers are to be hung during harvesting (so not putting them on top of each other) and training a few ladies to do the bunching (with extra care to the foliage) in the greenhouse, thus minimizing the handling. Great to see that, despite each being in charge of his own section of the process, they tackle problems from a shared responsibility.

In the meantime we had installed the Verdict program for the dataloggers to be used in transport had brainstormed about the quality of the boxes, different transport possibilities and the wish to replace the current little lead seal on each flower by something more environment friendly. More homework, en route to perfection.