A worker at a Colombian flower-sorting facility keeps a broken flower in her shirt pocket. Roses make up two-thirds of flower exports in Colombia, the second-biggest floral producer in the world.Photography by Yader Guzman/The Globe and Mail
The flower growers of Colombia like to say their business is half agriculture, half logistics.
It’s hardly a stretch, especially as they prepare for their biggest day of the year. For Colombia’s flower giants, Valentine’s Day alone accounts for 80 per cent of annual profit. “It’s huge,” says Augusto Solano Mejia, executive president of Asocolflores, the Association of Colombian Flower Exporters.
So is the effort to stock shelves with enough flowers for customers typically looking to buy on just two days, Feb. 13 and 14.
Colombia, the world’s second-largest flower exporter behind the Netherlands, ships about 650 million stems overseas for Valentine’s Day. Two-thirds are roses, the vast majority destined for the United States and Canada.
To keep the blooms vibrant as they move thousands of kilometres to supermarkets and florists across North America from greenhouses outside of Bogota, the industry stages what might be the planet’s most colourful airlift.
A rose in full bloom at a sampling greenhouse.
In the weeks before Valentine’s, Colombia’s flower workers prepare the roses for shipment: snipping, sorting, dethorning and packing. Thorns are such an unwelcome feature that buyers place a genetic premium on varieties with fewer spikes.
Hue matters, too – in particular red, which makes up more than half of the Valentine’s roses exported by Colombia’s biggest companies. The current genetic champion of the Colombian-grown red rose is the German-bred Freedom variety, described as possessing a “true red” and “near perfect colour.”
Once the flowers are packed, they are loaded onto trucks, which make 13,000 deliveries to airports in Bogota and Rionegro (traffic jams in Colombia can threaten to spoil Valentine’s in British Columbia). Narcotics police X-ray each box before workers put them onto more than 650 cargo flights, most destined for Miami. There, cargoes are loaded onto trucks and dispatched across the continent.
A single Boeing 747 can carry nearly two million stems, and the volume of flower flights before Valentine’s roughly triples the country’s typical air-cargo movements. The extra flights fly south empty, ultimately adding to the price of the flowers.
Transportation makes up nearly a third of the cost of a Valentine’s rose, and the imperative to squeeze in stems means most flights leave after midnight, when cooler, denser air allows jets to take off with more weight.
A box of roses destined for Calgary waits to be loaded on a truck.
The temperature inside is crucial. Roses travel best at between 1 C and 3 C. Any warmer, and blooms may wilt before the eight to 10 days of life the industry seeks inside the homes of Valentine’s recipients. That means moving fast. A single rose can be inside a Toronto distribution warehouse within five days of being snipped from an Elite Flowers greenhouse outside Bogota. (Elite is Colombia’s biggest flower exporter and supplies Loblaws and Costco in Canada.)
All of this requires huge numbers of people. Around Valentine’s, Colombian flower growers hire tens of thousands of additional labourers. The industry has been accused of making beauty out of exploitation by sucking unsustainable quantities of water from local aquifers and exposing vulnerable workers to carcinogens during shifts that can last 22 hours. Many hires are women, and labour-rights advocates have documented employers requiring pregnancy tests and birth control. Elite says it hires many people from conflict areas, paying them enough for Valentine’s and Mother’s Day work to sustain their families year-round.
Elite alone operates 1,100 hectares of greenhouses in Colombia, the equivalent of 1,500 soccer fields. Even that is not enough to sate Valentine’s demand, but expanding is tricky. A single rose plant yields about 15 flowers a year. Only two or three can be used at Valentine’s.
“If you plan everything for Valentine’s Day, it’s not good business the rest of the year,” says Alvaro Camacho, Elite’s manager of logistics.
“Nobody,” he adds, “understands what is behind making Valentine’s Day happen.”
At Elite Flower in Facatativa, northwest of Bogota, a worker searches for roses ready to be cut. It is Jan. 24, three weeks before Valentine’s Day. Timing is critical because the flowers have to be cut at full bloom, processed and sent to North America the same night.
Elite operates 1,100 hectares of greenhouses, like these ones in Facatativa. The savanna around Bogota is ideal for roses thanks to stable temperatures and abundant year-round sunlight.
Dozens of workers sort, de-thorn, pack and label the flowers. Elite employs about 16,000 people year-round, which grows to 24,000 in the Valentine’s Day season.
A worker builds a bouquet. By itself, Valentine’s Day makes up 80 per cent of annual profit for the country’s big floral producers.
Showroom samples at Elite’s facility in Facatativa. Freedom, the variety second from left, is considered the current genetic champion for its ‘true red’ hue.
Once inspected for pests, the completed bouquets go through a tent to be strayed with pesticide. A bouquet from Elite, which supplies Loblaws and Costco in Canada, can be at a Toronto grocery store within five days of harvest.
When the flowers arrive at El Dorado International Airport in Bogota, screeners inspect the boxes for drugs and contraband. These ones are headed for Miami.
Workers push a pallet of roses toward a waiting Avianca Cargo plane. In the buildup to Valentine’s Day, Avianca flies up to 15 cargo planes of roses every day.
Photojournalist Yader Guzman on The Decibel
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TORONTO – Roots Corp. may have built its brand on all things comfy and cosy, but its CEO says activewear is now “really becoming a core part” of the brand.
The category, which at Roots spans leggings, tracksuits, sports bras and bike shorts, has seen such sustained double-digit growth that Meghan Roach plans to make it a key part of the business’ future.
“It’s an area … you will see us continue to expand upon,” she told analysts on a Friday call.
The Toronto-based retailer’s push into activewear has taken shape over many years and included several turns as the official designer and supplier of Team Canada’s Olympic uniform.
But consumers have had plenty of choice when it comes to workout gear and other apparel suited to their sporting needs. On top of the slew of athletic brands like Nike and Adidas, shoppers have also gravitated toward Lululemon Athletica Inc., Alo and Vuori, ramping up competition in the activewear category.
Roach feels Roots’ toehold in the category stems from the fit, feel and following its merchandise has cultivated.
“Our product really resonates with (shoppers) because you can wear it through multiple different use cases and occasions,” she said.
“We’ve been seeing customers come back again and again for some of these core products in our activewear collection.”
Her remarks came the same day as Roots revealed it lost $5.2 million in its latest quarter compared with a loss of $5.3 million in the same quarter last year.
The company said the second-quarter loss amounted to 13 cents per diluted share for the quarter ended Aug. 3, the same as a year earlier.
In presenting the results, Roach reminded analysts that the first half of the year is usually “seasonally small,” representing just 30 per cent of the company’s annual sales.
Sales for the second quarter totalled $47.7 million, down from $49.4 million in the same quarter last year.
The move lower came as direct-to-consumer sales amounted to $36.4 million, down from $37.1 million a year earlier, as comparable sales edged down 0.2 per cent.
The numbers reflect the fact that Roots continued to grapple with inventory challenges in the company’s Cooper fleece line that first cropped up in its previous quarter.
Roots recently began to use artificial intelligence to assist with daily inventory replenishments and said more tools helping with allocation will go live in the next quarter.
Beyond that time period, the company intends to keep exploring AI and renovate more of its stores.
It will also re-evaluate its design ranks.
Roots announced Friday that chief product officer Karuna Scheinfeld has stepped down.
Rather than fill the role, the company plans to hire senior level design talent with international experience in the outdoor and activewear sectors who will take on tasks previously done by the chief product officer.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
VANCOUVER – Mediated talks between the union representing HandyDART workers in Metro Vancouver and its employer, Transdev, are set to resume today as a strike that has stopped most services drags into a second week.
No timeline has been set for the length of the negotiations, but Joe McCann, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1724, says they are willing to stay there as long as it takes, even if talks drag on all night.
About 600 employees of the door-to-door transit service for people unable to navigate the conventional transit system have been on strike since last Tuesday, pausing service for all but essential medical trips.
Hundreds of drivers rallied outside TransLink’s head office earlier this week, calling for the transportation provider to intervene in the dispute with Transdev, which was contracted to oversee HandyDART service.
Transdev said earlier this week that it will provide a reply to the union’s latest proposal on Thursday.
A statement from the company said it “strongly believes” that their employees deserve fair wages, and that a fair contract “must balance the needs of their employees, clients and taxpayers.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MONTREAL – Travel company Transat AT Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter compared with a profit a year earlier as its revenue edged lower.
The parent company of Air Transat says it lost $39.9 million or $1.03 per diluted share in its quarter ended July 31.
The result compared with a profit of $57.3 million or $1.49 per diluted share a year earlier.
Revenue in what was the company’s third quarter totalled $736.2 million, down from $746.3 million in the same quarter last year.
On an adjusted basis, Transat says it lost $1.10 per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of $1.10 per share a year earlier.
Transat chief executive Annick Guérard says demand for leisure travel remains healthy, as evidenced by higher traffic, but consumers are increasingly price conscious given the current economic uncertainty.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
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