Eliot's Travels

Finally, we made it to see the Bloemenveiling in action. Third times the charm, so they say. Julie had expressed interest in seeing the flower auction. After our failed attempt on Wed, we had to go on Friday. Thursdays are too crazy to let visitors into this auction. We set our alarms and were out the door by 7:20 am to catch the visitor opening at 8. The auction itself begins at 6 in the morning.

Carts of gerbera daisies ready for distribution - I was in heaven
Cut Flowers awaiting delivery to the buyers
The Auction Clock
A Dutch auction works by the auctioneer setting a high price and reducing the price until someone agrees to buy the product. For cut flowers, the price is per stem. The clock shows the producer, product, cool storage locker, inspection code, quality, notes, actual sale per stem. The dial (see lights below) moves showing the price dropping. At this facility the carts of flowers move through the auction hall and the bidding is happening. This seems pretty straightfoward until you realize that hundreds of units are sold every second. All the buyers have computers or use Flora Hollands keypads to buy. It's very lowkey and the buyers casually make their purchases (not like a stock exchange). Even though more than 7 million Euros change hands daily.

Clock live
Cold storage of roses (49,000 m2 of cold storage)

posted by Whitney @ 12:54 PM