An insight into where our beautiful roses come from

​Kenya is one of the leading suppliers of cut flowers to the UK and I was lucky enough to take a tour around the impressive tunnels and greenhouses of Kisima Flowers and find out more about their production.
 
I spent the afternoon with Floriculture General Manager Craig Oulton, which involved lots of conversations around export markets, certification, carbon, climate change and staff welfare. 
 
Flowers are grown at an altitude of 2400m on the foothills of Mt. Kenya - a perfect climate for large headed premium roses. The main harvest season is between December and May, coinciding with Valentines Day, Easter, and Mother’s Day in Europe, these are the key focus points of the business.
 
There are 30ha of flowers grown in greenhouses and tunnels. 20ha are roses and the other 10ha are a mix of delphiniums, eryngium, alstroemeria and stocks. Most flowers are sold to Aalsmeer in the Netherlands - The world’s largest flower auction.
 
Around 35m flowers are sold by Kisima every year and although traditionally they would be picked and in our sitting rooms in less than three days via air freight, Kisima is now transporting more of their roses by sea, which means they are on the water for between 30 and 45 days. Their flowers are able to last this long due to being dipped into an ethylene gas suppressor before being packed in polythene packets.
 
I was told that switching to sea freight is contributing hugely to reducing their scope three emissions and uses 80% less carbon than air freight.

On the discussion of how the UK can look to increase its own domestic production of flowers and reduce its reliance on imports, I was told that at Kisima they are extremely conscious about their carbon and research they have conducted revealed that the whole process from field to vase uses 50% less carbon than the flowers grown in the UK and Amsterdam, because they use less electricity, heat and CO2 gas