Bloomberg Businessweek - USA (2020-04-20)

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Bloomberg Businessweek

The auction hall at Naaldwijk, where stations

have been closed to ensure social distancing

Day,andEaster.AndintheearlydaysofMarch,evenas

theNetherlandswasreportingitsfirstcoronavirusinfec-

tions,theauctionswentoffasusual.ButafterItalyimposed

a nationallockdown,Franceorderednonessentialstores

toclose,andGermanycalledforthecancellationofmost

events,themarketcollapsed.

March16,thesamedayDeanpostponedherwedding,was

the“blackestday”attheauctions,saysFredvanTol,interna-

tionalsalesmanageratRoyalFloraHolland.Growerswerecall-

inghimina panic.“Thosearedifficultphonecalls,”hesays.

“Theirlifeworkis abouttoimplode.”

Rosepricesdroppedto€0.07(8¢)a stemthatday,down

70%fromtheirpricea yearearlier.Tradersstruggledtomake

anydeals.AttheNaaldwijkauctionsite,outsideTheHague,

workerstossedcartfulaftercartfulofwrappedbouquetsand

pottedhouseplantsonthefloorsosmalltractorscouldscoop

themintodumpsters.Theauctionhousecouldstabilizeprices

onlybycappingsupply at 30% of last year’s level.

In normal times, Dave van der Meer, who runs his own

flower export business, wakes up each morning at 4:30 to start

his day at the Naaldwijk auction. He’s been walking through

the rows of flowers for most of his 50 years, since he was a

toddler visiting his father at work. The auction has now gone

quiet. “You can fire a cannonball in the flower hall without hit-

ting anybody,” he says. Royal FloraHolland has asked buyers

to bid from their home computers if possible. With prices so

low and flights restricted, many growers have stopped sending

flowers altogether. The cooperative estimates the outbreak

will lead to more than $2 billion in losses.

VanderMeersaysit tookoneanda halfweekstoshredall

theunsoldflowersatNaaldwijk.Evenwithallthewaste,the

Dutchflorist who customarily donates thousands of blossoms

for the pope’s Easter Mass decided not to send any this year,

to protect volunteers. The pontiff ultimately performed the

liturgy inside St. Peter’s Basilica rather than outside in the

square surrounded by 30 tons of flowers and 80,000 people.

BEFORETHE PANDEMIC, 42 OF THECARGOFLIGHTS

arriving at Aalsmeer each week came from Kenya, whose

climate allows roses to grow year-round. The East African

nation ships about $1 billion worth of flowers a year, mak-

ing it Europe’s biggest supplier. That figure represents ten-

fold growth since the 1990s, as investments in infrastructure

made large-scale exports possible. More than 150,000 peo-

ple now toil on Kenyan flower farms, many of them women.

The work is grueling, with long shifts in steamy greenhouses,

andlaborersearnaslittleas$70a month,butit’sa steady

paycheckina countrywherethosecanbehardtocomeby.

BillyCoulsonemploys1,200people at Nini Flowers, one of

many farms in a valley north of Nairobi, near Lake Naivasha.

Giraffes sometimes wander up to his 50 greenhouses, from

which he usually exports 2.2 millionstemseachweek.He

offers nine varieties of roses, pink andorangeandyellow

and red, selling mostly to big Europeansupermarket chains