Love in Transit: Ensuring Your Valentine's Gifts Reach Across the World

In 2023 it was found that around 224 million roses are grown specifically for Valentine’s Day. This makes them one of the most popular gifts to be given on February 14th. Aside from the international shipping of flowers, other popular types of cargo commonly shipped prior to Valentine’s Day include:

Chocolate and other sweets (on average more than 36 million heart shaped boxes of chocolate are sold each year)

Greetings cards (Statistically Americans send around 145 million Valentine’s Day cards each year)

Shipping Flowers

When it comes to shipping flowers, significant care must be taken to preserve their quality and freshness and ensure that they arrive at their final destination on time. While they’re beautiful as gifts, anyone involved in their shipment knows how fragile they are as cargo.

Because they are sensitive to odour contamination, humidity, and temperature, cold-chain logistics is often the best choice for shipping flowers internationally. To achieve their desired lifespan, flowers should be transported in refrigerated vehicles from the packing facilities on the farms where they are cut. From here, your flower cargo must be refrigerated for a minimum of four hours in water before being graded, treated, and packed into reefer containers for export.

Shipping Chocolate

Chocolate can be shipped in two forms: either as the final product or as the unprocessed cocoa beans. If it is the former, it’s vital that you know the specific melting point for each of your chocolate products to ensure that the cargo remains at the correct temperature during transit. As white chocolate has a lower melting point, any products made using it will need to be kept at cooler temperatures.

Even prior to shipping, it’s important to keep certain types of chocolate cargo as cold as possible before packaging it, as this will help to ensure the retention of cold temperatures during transit. This type of passive insulation is not only cost-effective but helps to maintain the existing temperature of the shipment. Another way to maintain the temperature of your chocolate cargo is through the different packaging types available such as insulated box liners, pouches, and pallet shippers. As these are insulated packages, they can help maintain the correct temperature of your cargo.

Another element that should be considered when shipping chocolate is seasonality and location, as temperatures can range vastly depending on the time of year and shipping location. While it’s important to keep the time between packaging and shipping as short as possible, experienced shipping companies will also understand and adjust for cargo being shipped from cooler to warmer climes, or vice versa.

Shipping Cocoa Beans

If you’re planning on making your own chocolate, you may be dealing with the shipment of cocoa beans in the lead up to Valentine’s Day. Most cocoa beans are shipped as breakbulk cargo, in bags or within freight containers to maximize transportation levels. To preserve the quality of your cocoa bean cargo, it’s crucial that the beans are properly dried prior to shipping to prevent spoilage.