From bud to bloom, harvest to vase, the trail of the rose that ends on Valentine’s Day is a model of supply chain synchronicity perfected over the past half-century.
More than 90 percent of the roses Americans will buy for Valentine’s Day were grown on co-op farms on the Andean slopes of Colombia and Ecuador, pinched to induce buds in November, cut only days ago, and flown to Miami International Airport to be shipped in refrigerated trucks within hours to wholesalers nationwide.
Rose stems cut in Colombia this morning could be in a florist shop in Columbia, South Carolina, tonight.
“If you ask most consumers where [the] flowers come from that are in their supermarket, most of them think they’re locally grown in somebody’s backyard, but they’re not,” Christine Boldt, executive vice president of the Association of Floral Importers of America, told The Epoch Times.
The association represents about 85 percent of the 150 or so floral importers that operate out of warehouses clustered within five miles of the airport in Miami, she said.
Last year, Americans spent $2.6 billion on flowers, with 40 percent purchased on Valentine’s Day, according to the National Retail Federation, which projects similar spending in 2025. Overall, U.S. consumers spent $25.8 billion celebrating Valentine’s Day in 2024, which is estimated to increase to a record $27.5 billion this year.
“The supply chain of flowers is a marvel of speed, planning, and global collaboration,” Elizabeth Daly, director of marketing and communications at the Society of American Florists, told The Epoch Times.
The society, which represents more than 7,000 florist retailers and wholesalers, cites estimates from USTradeNumbers.com that predict the nation’s 40,000 florists will sell approximately $1.67 billion in roses during the week of Valentine’s Day. Still, supermarkets and 1-800-FLOWERS are the largest single retailers of cut flowers.
More than 60 percent of Valentine’s roses come from Colombia, with Ecuador providing about 25 percent, Boldt said.
Colombia’s cut-flower industry, which did not export its first shipment until 1968, now wholesales more than $2 billion a year to the United States and employs more than 200,000 people—mostly women—on small farms of fewer than 20 acres, according to Asocolflores, the Colombian association of flower exporters.
When Colombian President Gustavo Petro refused to accept U.S. military flights carrying deportees to Colombia in late January, Trump threatened a 25 percent tariff on Colombian exports, including Valentine’s Day roses. Within a day, Petro relented, and Trump lifted the tariff.
“That was a turbulent ride,” Boldt said. “But we’re hoping that ... everyone understands that Colombia, number one, is our partner. I mean, they are a main supplier, main source.”
An employee cuts roses for export at Bojaca Flowers in Bojacá, Colombia, on Feb. 7, 2024. More than 60 percent of Valentine’s roses come from Colombia, according to Christine Boldt. Raul Arboleda/AFP via Getty Images
The United States has a free trade agreement with Colombia, but not with Ecuador.
“We’ve been paying duties for over four years now because the Generalized System of Preferences expired,” Boldt said. “So we’ve been trying to work on that.”
The Generalized System of Preferences allows duty-free or low-duty imports from developing countries. The system expired during Trump’s first term, and bills seeking to renew it have stalled.
Loading Up, Shipping Out
The fulcrum on which the entire system pivots is Miami, where 8 billion or more flower stems arrive yearly for nationwide distribution. Miami has more than 100 refrigerated warehouses that employ more than 6,100 people, primarily west of Miami International Airport.
Boldt said that 91 percent of flowers enter the United States through southern Florida, with 90 percent to 95 percent by air and the remainder by sea containers.
On average, Miami International Airport handles 32,500 boxes of flowers per day. But as Valentine’s Day nears, up to 50 cargo jets deliver as many as 95,000 boxes of flowers daily, according to the Miami-Dade Aviation Department’s marketing division.
Within 24 hours of being cut, flowers are hauled from rural farms to Bogotá, Colombia, or Quito, Ecuador, where they are packed onto FedEx, UPS, or DHL temperature-controlled jets. The Colombian airline Avianca doubles its daily cargo flights to Miami in the month leading up to Valentine’s Day.
“Upon arriving at Miami International Airport, shipments undergo inspection by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, where specialists check for pests and diseases,“ Daly said. ”Once cleared, flowers are sent to wholesale distribution centers across the country, where cold storage ensures their freshness.”
Wholesalers sort the flowers by quality, color, and variety before shipping them to florists, she said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists inspect flowers for foreign pests or diseases in the FedEx cargo hub at Miami International Airport in Miami on Feb. 12, 2025. FedEx transfers millions of fresh flowers through the hub for Valentine's Day by increasing air capacity from Colombia and Ecuador. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
“Florists then prepare the blooms for customers by trimming, hydrating, and creating bouquets,” Daly said. “This entire process—from South American farms to U.S. homes—occurs within days, showcasing the precision and time sensitivity required to ensure that flowers arrive fresh and vibrant for their recipients.”
For Leo Victoria, co-owner of American Floral Cargo, “Jan. 15 is the exact date Valentine’s Day started, and Feb. 10 is when it ends.”
Orders are finalized in December, and “the logistics part” begins with the final two weeks before the one-day holiday. It is a race against time, he said.
American Floral Cargo has hired 15 extra hands to load and unload trucks and sort out pallets of rose boxes for distribution, Victoria said.
Ten days before Valentine’s Day, in the early afternoon, his office and warehouse were in a midday lull. The morning dispatch of loaded trucks had left the warehouse bound for California and as far away as Vancouver, Canada.
By the weekend, trucks would be headed for the Carolinas and New England, Victoria said, with the last round of deliveries in the final days dedicated to Florida.
“By 6 p.m., the trucks will be bringing more flowers from the airport, and by morning, they are shipped, and the process begins again,” he said.
Next door at Armellini Logistics—one of 30 independent Miami trucking companies that almost exclusively transports flowers in refrigerated tractor trailers—owner Steve Armellini was dodging pallet jacks in the warehouse, which maintains a temperature of 38 degrees to 42 degrees Fahrenheit.
Steve Armellini, owner of Armellini Logistics, said his 80-year-old family-owned business ships flowers nationwide for 150 importers, at his company near Miami International Airport, in Miami on Feb. 4, 2025. John Haughey/The Epoch Times
About 580 trucks leave the warehouse each day, but it will be “700 a day for the next 10 days,” he said.
Armellini said his 80-year-old family business ships across the country and into Canada. The company also has six terminals where wholesalers can pick up deliveries in California, Dallas, Atlanta, and Florida.
Armellini’s largest single customer is Publix. The Florida-based grocery chain usually orders about “50 loads a week,” with that ballooning “to more than 100” as Valentine’s Day nears, he said. Publix actually has a desk in his office.
“If they deal with flowers, they deal with me somehow,” Armellini said, noting that he ships for 150 companies, including American Floral Cargo.
He said the company’s motto is “Tomorrow’s product today; we’re always a day ahead.”
“A lot of logistics going on,” he said, “flower after flower after flower.”
