Guides
Moving cut flowers in Dubai: which ones want the cold, and which ones it kills
A chiller van at +2 °C is the right vehicle for a box of roses and the wrong one for a box of anthuriums. Flowers are not one cargo with one temperature, and the split runs straight through what a refrigerated van can and cannot do.
Two groups
Cold is not a favour you do every flower
The single most useful thing to know before booking a vehicle is which of two groups your box belongs to, because they do not overlap.
| Group | Wants | What goes wrong below it |
|---|---|---|
| Temperate cut flowers — roses, carnations, chrysanthemum, gypsophila | About 1 to 2 °C | Little. Cold is what buys vase life |
| Dendrobium orchids | Around 10 to 13 °C | Held below about 7 °C for a week, blooms discolour and drop |
| Anthurium | 12.5 to 20 °C | Below 10 °C: purpling, then browning, then the flower is finished |
The damage to the tropicals is called chilling injury, and the cruel part is that it does not show at the moment it happens. A box of anthuriums carried at +4 °C looks perfect when the doors open. The purpling appears a day or two later at the florist, by which time everyone involved is certain the problem was someone else’s.
Every refrigerated body we run holds a single chosen setting, and the warm end of what it can be asked for is +5 °C. Read that against the table and the conclusion is unavoidable: they are well suited to the first row and unsuitable for the other two. A chiller van cannot hold 12 °C, and +5 °C is already inside the range that damages anthuriums.
So the first question is never which van. It is which flowers, and a mixed pallet of roses and anthuriums is the same problem as a mixed frozen and chilled load, solved the same way: two bands cannot share one body. That arithmetic is set out in the mixed load guide.
The hub
Most of this stock arrives already cold
Dubai is a flower hub rather than a flower market, and that changes where your responsibility starts.
Cut flowers arrive here by air and pass through the Dubai Flower Centre, a dedicated handling terminal built around keeping the cool chain unbroken from the aircraft to the consignee. Most of the internal space sits at around 1.1 °C, the facility is built to hold anything between 2 and 12 °C for stock that needs it, and it offers vacuum and rapid cooling along with sealed bays specifically for goods that give off ethylene.
What that means for a collection is worth stating plainly: the flowers are usually in better condition when you pick them up than at any later point in the day. Nobody downstream improves them. The entire job of the vehicle, the driver and the florist is to lose as little as possible of what the terminal handed over.
It also means the vehicle has to be at temperature before it arrives, not after. A van that is switched on at the terminal door is pulling its own body down while your boxes sit in it, and the first half hour of that is taken out of the vase life you paid for. We pre-cool to the band you give us, which is why the band belongs on the booking rather than in a conversation with the driver.
Ethylene
The damage you cannot see, smell or measure
Temperature is the risk everyone watches. Ethylene is the one that quietly shortens vase life in a load that never left its band.
Ethylene is a gas that plants themselves produce, and it acts as an ageing signal. For many cut flowers, exposure to it brings forward the end of vase life: petals drop earlier, buds fail to open, the bunch is finished days before the customer expected. It is colourless and odourless at the concentrations that matter, so there is nothing for a driver to notice.
Sensitivity is not uniform, which is why the handling terminal keeps sealed bays for ethylene-producing goods rather than treating every consignment the same. Anthurium, for instance, is documented as unaffected by ethylene, so anti-ethylene treatments do nothing for it, while dendrobium orchids are slightly sensitive. If a particular variety matters to you, ask your grower or importer rather than assuming the whole box behaves alike.
For a hired vehicle the practical rules are short. Do not carry flowers with ripening fruit or vegetables, which are among the strongest sources of the gas, so a florist run and a produce run are two different jobs. Take dead and dying material out of the body rather than letting it travel. And do not leave a loaded van idling in an enclosed space, because exhaust is an ethylene source as well as a safety problem.
The vehicle
Which van, and when the answer is not a chiller van at all
Three shapes of flower work come up in Dubai, and only two of them want refrigeration.
A florist collecting boxes of temperate stock and running them to a shop or a studio is straightforward chiller work. The 1-Ton Chiller Van suits it: set at the low end, pre-cooled, and small enough to park where flowers actually get delivered. A florist who wants to do the airport run in person can: of the cooled vehicles, this is the one that stays inside a standard car licence, so the collection does not have to wait on a hired driver.
An event or wedding installation is a volume problem more than a temperature one. Buckets, boxes, foliage, vases and structure all move together, often to a venue with a booked service entrance and a narrow window. That is usually a 3-Ton Chiller Van, or a dry van if the stock is going straight into an air-conditioned ballroom, and the planning is closer to event van work than to a supply round.
Tropicals are the case where we will tell you not to book a chiller van. Anthuriums and dendrobium orchids want a band our units cannot hold, so the right answer is an insulated body with the refrigeration switched off, or an air-conditioned vehicle, shielded from the sun and moved quickly. In a Dubai August that is a real constraint rather than a preference, and it is better discussed before the booking than at the loading bay.
Loading
Flowers need air moving round them, not just cold
A flower load fails differently from a food load. It is rarely the setting that does the damage; it is the stacking.
Boxes pushed tight against each other and against the walls stop the cold air circulating, and the middle of that block sits several degrees above the display reading for the whole journey. Leave gaps between stacks and a channel along the floor, and keep the load off the front bulkhead so the air coming out of the evaporator can get past rather than being blocked at source.
Height is the other one. Stacking boxes to the roof blocks the return path the air needs to get back to the unit, and the top layer takes the direct blast from the discharge, which on a low setting is colder than the number you asked for. Stop short of the ceiling and the whole body works better.
Buckets are a different discipline again. Water on a load floor moves at every roundabout, so buckets travel in crates or trays, strapped, with enough water to keep stems wet and not enough to slop. Boxed flowers go under buckets in the stack, never over them.
Finally, keep the doors shut. Every opening on a summer round is heat the unit has to pull back out, and flowers pay for it in vase life rather than in anything you can see at the door. Pull everything for one stop before the handle turns.
The last metres
The walk from the van to the door
Everything upstream can be perfect and still be undone in the four minutes nobody plans for.
A box carried across an open car park at midday, left on a pavement while a door is unlocked, or set down next to a shop window in direct sun, is taking more heat in those minutes than in the previous hour of driving. Plan the handover: know where you are parking, have someone ready at the other end, and move boxes in one trip rather than three.
Shaded loading is worth going out of your way for. A basement service entrance beats a front door in a Dubai summer even when it adds five minutes to the route, and the difference shows up in the stock rather than on the clock.
If the receiving end has a cold room, put the stock in it before anything else, including the paperwork. Signing first and moving boxes afterwards is the standard way an otherwise faultless delivery loses a day of vase life on a counter.
Peaks
The three weeks that decide a florist’s year
Flower demand in Dubai is not level, and vehicles are hardest to get in exactly the weeks you need one most.
Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and the wedding and festival season all concentrate volume into a few days, and the whole city’s florists, event companies and hotels are hiring at once. A chiller van booked a fortnight ahead is an ordinary transaction; the same van asked for on the morning of 14 February is not.
The arithmetic usually favours holding the vehicle across the peak rather than booking single days inside it. A week’s hire includes 1,000 km against 150 km on a day, and a florist working a peak is doing airport collections, shop runs and event drops on the same vehicle. The allowances and rates are on the rate card, and if you are unsure whether the peak is three days or eight, tell us both and we will price it either way.
The other peak-week decision is the driver. One of ours costs AED 250 and covers nine hours, which on a day holding three airport collections frees your florists to arrange rather than drive. Van with a driver sets out the hourly and half-day options as well.
Flower transport questions
What temperature should I ask for?
For temperate stock such as roses and carnations, the low end of the cool band, around +2 °C. For anthuriums or dendrobium orchids, do not ask for a chiller setting at all, because the band they need is above what our units hold. Tell us the varieties and we will tell you which applies.
Can one van carry roses and anthuriums together?
Not at one setting, and there is no middle number that serves both. A body cold enough for roses is inside the range that damages anthuriums. Split the job, or carry the smaller half in insulated boxes at its own band.
The flowers looked fine when they arrived. Why did they fail two days later?
That is the signature of chilling injury or ethylene exposure, and neither shows at handover. Chilling damage on tropicals appears as purpling then browning a day or two on; ethylene brings the end of vase life forward without changing how the stems look on the day.
Can I carry flowers and a fruit delivery on the same run?
Better not to. Ripening fruit is a strong ethylene source, and the flowers pay for it in vase life even though nothing looks wrong at the time. The handling terminals keep such goods in sealed bays for the same reason. Run them separately.
Do I need a food transport permit for flowers?
Flowers are not food, so the food transport permitting that applies to a catering or produce load is a different question. Tell us what you are carrying when you book and we will confirm in writing what the vehicle is cleared for rather than leaving it to the gate.
How far ahead should I book for Valentine’s week?
Two weeks is comfortable, and the last few days before 14 February are the hardest in the year to find a refrigerated vehicle in Dubai. If you can, take the week rather than the days: the included mileage suits a peak with airport runs in it, and you are not competing for a van on the morning you need it.
Tell us the varieties, not just the boxes
Send us what you are carrying, how many boxes or buckets, where it is collected and where it goes. If tropicals are in the load we will say so before you book, because that changes the vehicle rather than the price.
Reach us on WhatsApp or through the contact page. The cooled part of the fleet sits on chiller van rental in Dubai, and if you want the difference between a cooled body and a frozen one first, start with chiller van, freezer van or reefer truck.