Wageningen UR Food & Biobased Research, Plant breeders, growers and wholesalers, import and export, are working together in the GreenCHAINge project to further increase the sustainability of transport An important aspect is the switch from air freight to sea freight and from road transport to rail transport. Energy savings at international floriculture transport is an essential objective in this project. The CO2 reduction in the various commercial routes will be described in the subprojects

1. GreenCHAINge
Sustainable chain for ornamentals
Eelke Westra

2. Wageningen approach
Initial
Quality
Chain
conditions
Quality
development Predicted
Quality
+
+
=

3. GreenCHAINGe workpackages (WP)
 WP1: Import Cut Flowers
● Kenian Cut-Roses imported by sea freight
 WP2: Export Potted Plants
● Dutch grown Anthurium, Phalaenopsis and
Cyclamen exported by train or barge
 WP3: Export Cut Flowers
● Dutch grown Gerbera and Cut-Anthurium exported
by truck (long distance), train or barge

4. GreenCHAINge Consortium
Private
 Horticultural Board
 Flower trade (branche organisation)
 Greenhouse production
(branche organisation)
 Plant breeding (branche organisation)
Knowledge institute:
 Wageningen UR

5. Quality in Chains
INFORMATION
Grower transport
Trade/
Auction
transport Retail
DATA DATA DATA

6. Variety
perdicts vase
life
• Which varieties
are this?
• Why different
vase lifes?
Cultivar
Vaselife [days]

7. Influence Transport Temperature

8. different cv, same condition
Temp. variatie
continu
5°C
continu
11°C
continu
8°C
1x conden-
satie

9. Product
LogisticsTechnology
Multi-disciplinary approach

10. Postharvest quality and logistics
Quality
Fenotype
Genotype
Growing
conditions Postharvest &
Logisitics

11. Quality Monitoring
Learn of daily operation:
 Monitor growing conditions
 Know variety
 Measure chain conditions
 Log quality measurements
 Create dataset and analyse

12. Summary (1)
 Quality of fresh produce needs total chain approach
● Transparency needed between every link
 Appropriate technology can then be selected to maintain
quality
● A single factor approach only leads to sub-optimal
results

13. Summary (2)
 Quality starts with the intrinsic potential of a plant
(genes)
 The postharvest chain can only slow down quality loss,
the chain is not a hospital
 Understanding and knowing quality loss gives many
possibilities
● Low hanging fruit: start with chain monitoring

14. Information
Contact
Food & Biobased
Research
PO Box 17
6700 AA Wageningen
Eelke.Westra@wur.nl
+31 317 480208
© Wageningen UR 2014