Holy Ship!

"East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'
we're gonna do what they say can't be done.
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I'm east bound, just watch ol' "Bandit" run."
                                                           -Jerry Reed

T-Minus 32 days until Valentines Day. Much like astronauts at NASA preparing for a space mission, Sun Valley is preparing for the holiday.  There are check lists, meetings and a strong sense that the more pre-planning we accomplish now, the smoother every aspect of our operation will be as we approach the big day in February...and no I'm not talking about the Super Bowl on Feb 2nd.

Tulips = Love

It is thrilling to see Sun Valley scale up for Valentine's Day, this is when we flex our muscles. This is what we train for all year, an opportunity to bring our customers the freshest, highest quality, American grown flowers for the most romantic day of the year.

I headed down to the warehouse to find our transportation manager, Andrea Pesenti, and get the scoop on how all this works.

Andrea Pesenti

Lily: When do you start preparing for Valentine's Day?

Andrea: Mentally, just after Thanksgiving. we need to have a firm plan before Christmas happens. Right now our planning is full bore. This time of year, we actually rent additional cross-docks. One dock in Oxnard and one in Watsonville. So we are planning on many different levels.

Lily: What are the biggest challenges?

Andrea: Finding trucks that are coming to Humboldt County is my single biggest challenge since Highway 101 has some load restrictions. We are able to get what we need, but I really work hard dispatching and organizing our drivers. The other wild card is the weather, this time of year the roads and skies in any part of the country can be severely impacted by bad weather.

Lily: How many trucks will leave Sun Valley this year?

Andrea: With our carriers such as Armellini, Prime and Florida Beauty we see a lot of traffic, add in all the customers picking up at the farm, we are looking at a bunch of trucks.

Brrrrr its cold in here! Upright hampers getting ready to ship.

Lily: How many pallets on a full truck?

Andrea: On a 53 foot semi we get 26-30 pallets...the average is 28.

Lily: How many boxes on a pallet?

Andrea: I usually say an average of 35 boxes per pallet, which is about 100 cubes.

Lily: So about 980 boxes of flowers on each truck...gosh that's a lot of stems! When do you get to relax?

Andrea: When we make it to February 11th, I will be able to tell my team "We did it!" and we will be over the hump. I have a staff of 8 people spread across the farms, all working to get the flowers where they need to be. ...until then I sleep with my cell phone next to my bed to ensure that all the planning we are doing comes off without a hitch.

Lily: Thanks Andrea!

"East Bound and Down"

We talk a lot about growing flowers on this blog, so thanks for coming along today to learn how we prepare for a big holiday. We will be following our Valentine's Day prep, so stay tuned.