Lufthansa Cargo made sure lovers across Europe could say it with flowers by transporting over 900 tonnes of roses for Valentine’s Day.

More than 900 tonnes of roses were transported on Quito – Frankfurt, Bogota – Frankfurt and Nairobi – Frankfurt routes, the equivalent to some 10 million roses imported over three weeks.

Most of the roses begin their journey in Bolivia, Ecuador or Kenya, which have ideal climates for cultivating these flowers and the best growing conditions all year round.

To ensure the flowers reached their recipients in full bloom, they must be transported quickly and carefully at a constant temperature of 2-4 Celsius along the entire logistics chain.

The roses are harvested several times a day at the flower farms and then immediately placed in water and cooled.

Following sorting and packing, the flowers are taken directly to the airport and loaded onto the freighters.

The flowers only remain at Frankfurt Airport for a short while, being transported on the Main river to other German cities, but also neighbouring countries including Austria and Switzerland.