today one of the largest flower auctions in the world takes place in what is arguably a building with the biggest footprint in the world royal flora Holland tulips are thought of as the flower of Holland and during the Dutch Golden Age they were priced higher than gold today supported by government initiatives flower agriculture throughout Holland is a major economic engine royal flora Holland is a cooperative that runs a daily weekday auction in Almere Netherlands centralised Dutch flower auctions began in 1911 and over the years mergers and acquisitions consolidated the Dutch auctions creating the nonprofit behemoth royal flora Holland is a non profit royal flora Holland addresses issues within the decorative flower and plant industry that will foster socially responsible sustainable green growth policies every weekday starting at 5:30 a.m. Dutch style auctions begin selling plants and flowers from local producers as well as international growers through a combined in-house and internet-based platform in 2016 over 12.5 billion items were sold from growers to wholesalers and retailers around the world tours of royal flora Holland are available throughout most of the year and this is basically the hub where flowers are auctions and then are distributed to all corners of the world ah I have one of the Deaf smelling dog okay so what are they doing now this is solving lunch orders and here they are sources for well you see several species and varieties of flowers here and those guys here on the little cars they deliver small orders to teach others so are they sorted by buyers yes provide fine so these are groups of different buyers who have bought these flowers and then they're waiting here for pickup yep my other products and then small things are being delivered to the Ducks small spark lines but you'll see here facing that way on the right side are the cooling areas we will also visit 24 hours a day flowers and plants are being delivered here in the building they are to come here by air cargo or by ship or by truck they are going into the cooling areas because the flowers are being cooled on 2 degrees Celsius that can be kept for fresh for 3 weeks after their auction there and brought into this area there's a lot large hall which you'll see behind and when they're auctioned they're being brought to the left part of the building where the duct so far well medium and smaller buyers are our large buyers the largest buyers of Roberto Holland's they have their own locations on the other side of the road which you already saw maybe you've seen a bridge across the road here we also see the trolley system which automatically brings the trolleys to the other side of the world what's important to know it's called warrior for Allah here you get the the name royal in your brand name if you exist for over 100 years and you're the first one in your in your business who gets to well who gets to exist for over on years it was founded in the 1910s when here in the area well lots of flower growers well they had their own flower farms they were producing and flower is from Amsterdam got here and they traveled to every farm and used to play them out so everytime they asked they asked the farmer from what what's your prize oh well you put unit your neighbor the other guy a grower he is a better price for me so well they came to the conclusion this didn't work for them so they had to work together to get a better price they were both competitors to each other but also they were dependent we're depending on these so that's when the co-operative idea in flower in flower traits started well during the years especially after World War two flower consuming in Europe well gained popularity and more farmers and farmers became member of royal flora Holland and well eventually now we have we have a cooperative over 4000 grower companies and over 2,000 clients which are basically wholesalers from Europe the logistic part of the operations every day here there are more logistic movements than on Schiphol Airport which is also quite a large share transport [Music] yeah well about 50% is marching and the other half is very fine [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] yes in Africa in Ethiopia most browsers are being produced in Ethiopia Kenya [Music] in that's Lamar also that's growers after that far combination of time man Oh over 90% of all tulips are being sold during the first 20 weeks of the year yeah so did you talk about the season perfect [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] at first only Brewers growers produced for consumption in Amsterdam flowers were being brought by boat to Amsterdam today we're sold but during the years also a couple of kilometers from here simple airport found it and it that way now this is a very strategically located location for an international flower hub same implies for our second-largest location in now fact which is in between the hague and Rotterdam harbour for us for the Netherlands Germany is by far the most important export country followed by the United Kingdom and France Italy and after that the u.s. is also in the top ten Russia is also an important export country and now we want to focus on growth in Asia for instance China which also has quite a large local production but that's for us an important growing markets yeah