Q: Who are Andean Arabian Flowers?
A: We are floral designers, working tirelessly to supply fabulous designs made only from the freshest high quality flowers which we source and ship ourselves directly from growers and farms in Colombia and Kenya. Since 2006 Andean Arabian Flowers have supplied inspirational floral designs to offices, restaurants, hotels and private homes. We work with some of the most prestigious names in the UAE hospitality industry including some of the leading hotels and event organisers, we work in a variety of styles and a broad budget range to meet our clients specific requirements.
A: The majority of the 450 flower farms in Colombia can to be found on the Savanna plain of Bogota a plateaux some 8,600 ft high in the 7,000 km long Andean mountain range in South America; we established a business to import flowers directly from 'Las cultivos de Colombia' to Dubai, Andean Arabian Flowers seemed a logical name for a business shipping high quality flowers from 'Los Andes' to the Arabian deserts.
Q: What makes Andean Arabian Flowers different from the competition?
A: Since 2006 the year our company was established our philosophy has been only to source flowers directly from farms and growers, having lived in Colombia for 10 years I got to know many of the farms and their people well. When I lived in Colombia I was not working in the flower industry, it was the professionalism and extraordinary levels of environmental and social responsibility I encountered that impressed me so much that made me want to be a part of it.
We have an office in Bogota run by Jackie Moreno, on a daily basis Jackie is working closely with our 35 or so partner farms; we know which farm is best for a particular product, we know exactly when our flowers are harvested, we know how good each farm's post harvest program is and how long our flowers are cooled before being transported to the airport. But its not only the farms that we work with intimately, we are obsessive with managing our own shipments from Bogota with our freightforwarder, logistics is the key component to providing the freshest flowers for the UAE market. Our flowers only fly with Lufthansa, they are the most professional and reliable carrier in the industry. Lufthansa chill our flowers overnight in their cooler before the early morning flight to Frankfurt, the start of the 14,000km two day journey to Dubai, on arrival in Frankfurt our flowers are transferred directly to Lufthansa's perishable handling centre. We only fly passenger aircraft for the last leg of the journey to Dubai because it takes some 4 hours to unload a freighter, in Dubai where temperatures often reach 50°C that's the kiss of death for flowers, it takes DNATA's dedicated perishable handling team less than 20 minutes to unload our flowers and 20 minutes before they are in chilled environment of the Dubai Flower Centre.
We have an office in Bogota run by Jackie Moreno, on a daily basis Jackie is working closely with our 35 or so partner farms; we know which farm is best for a particular product, we know exactly when our flowers are harvested, we know how good each farm's post harvest program is and how long our flowers are cooled before being transported to the airport. But its not only the farms that we work with intimately, we are obsessive with managing our own shipments from Bogota with our freightforwarder, logistics is the key component to providing the freshest flowers for the UAE market. Our flowers only fly with Lufthansa, they are the most professional and reliable carrier in the industry. Lufthansa chill our flowers overnight in their cooler before the early morning flight to Frankfurt, the start of the 14,000km two day journey to Dubai, on arrival in Frankfurt our flowers are transferred directly to Lufthansa's perishable handling centre. We only fly passenger aircraft for the last leg of the journey to Dubai because it takes some 4 hours to unload a freighter, in Dubai where temperatures often reach 50°C that's the kiss of death for flowers, it takes DNATA's dedicated perishable handling team less than 20 minutes to unload our flowers and 20 minutes before they are in chilled environment of the Dubai Flower Centre.
Q: How is the Dubai flower market?
A: The Dubai flower industry offers a challenge for selling high quality flowers like ours, it's a market that historically is driven by volume, what you mostly find are low quality flowers from Africa, the market is not used to buying good quality flowers; how many times have you heard someone say that the flowers they bought in such and such supermarket did not look nice and only lasted a few days. We are breaking that mould by importing better quality flowers that last, yes you have to pay a little more, but then doesn't quality come at a price? From the very outset we have adopted a positive and ethical approach to the way we work that is second to none in the UAE; combine our core principles with a high quality product it has to be a win win for the consumer.
Q: Why do you import flowers mainly from Colombia?
A: Unfortunately and unfairly Colombia receives a certain amount of bad press, the country is not well known for their flowers, but did you know that Colombia has 14% of the global flower market with nearly 50 years of historical production, second only to Holland? Colombia is a tropical country close to the equator with the Andes running from north to south, the capital Bogota is situated on an Andean savanna plain at an altitude of 2620 meters (8,500ft). It's on the Sabanna de Bogota where many of Colombia's flower farms or fincas are to be found. The savanna has a subtropical highland climate with an average temperature of 14°C (frosts are rare), with two dry and two wet seasons and thanks to El Nino and La Nina there is no shortage of rain, sometimes too much. being close to the equator ensures 12 hours of daylight varying only 20 minutes year round. Combine this climate with some of the most fertile soil anywhere and you have near perfect conditions for growing flowers. Colombia is the second most bio-diverse country on the planet, so it's no surprise that it grows some of the best quality flowers in the world.
Q: Do you only source flowers from Colombia?
A: No, it probably looks like that but we do source flowers from other countries where a particular country is known to be the best for that specific flower or plant, from Thailand we source orchid plants, from New Zealand Cymbidium, from Chile Peonies and from Zanzibar Anthurium and foliage. But again we only source directly from individual growers and farms.