Chelsea Flower Show 2012 – Advantage Worldwide and Atlantic Forwarding for Kirstenbosch NBG

by Press Release on 2012-06-28 03:05:43

You couldn’t have asked for better weather for the Chelsea Flower show this year. Barely a cloud in the sky all week as the temperature was in the twenties for the entire show, perfect to draw in a sell out crowd.

At Advantage Worldwide we had been preparing ourselves for the show throughout May along with our partners, Atlantic Forwarding a South African based freight forwarder who had secured the contract for the 3rd year running, to organise and transport the exhibition entry for Kirstenbosch NBG, a renowned flower grower from the foot of Table Mountain, to the world famous Chelsea Flower Show. Utilising the skills and knowledge gained from previous shows, the specific details, although already aware, were none the less challenging. As soon as the contract was secured, plans were put in place to organise the aircraft, trucks, and customs clearance to make sure that everything would go to plan to ensure a great show for Kirstenbosch.

Atlantic Forwarding started the process by organising the air movement of a Wide range of colourful and exotic foliage from the slopes of Table Mountain, to London. This included packing of the flowers, organising the transfer to aircraft, and ultimately making sure that the flowers and all exhibition equipment made it onto the aircraft. With everything running smoothly the flowers safely arrived in London to be met by the Advantage Worldwide team tasked with the careful handling and clearance. 

The initial step was making sure that everything was safe to bring in to the country, including the lodging of correct certificates of approval; even confirming the soil the flowers had travelled in was allowed in to the UK. This turned out to be a longer process than first expected. It turned out that the estimated time for the flowers to be approved was going to be after the show had finished, this obviously wouldn’t have worked. After a series of communications between AWL and the UK Border Inspection Force, this ended up with a member of staff from AWL driving to Bristol to hand deliver the CITES (Government regulatory papers) applications to try and speed up the process to get everything passed through on time. The attention to detail and response times from the dedicated AWL team, proved successful and the consignment was cleared to move through HM Customs and on to the show.

After the plants were released the next step was transporting them over to Chelsea so that the exhibition area would be able to take shape. Using a series of trucks this was achieved successfully, and in good time. The only hiccup came when restrictive parking meant that the vehicles at times were made to park up across the other side of the river, however everything made it into the grounds without a hitch ready to be assembled into the fantastic plan & design that had been created by the staff of Kirstenbosch.

Thanks to the effort of those involved at Advantage Worldwide and Atlantic Forwarding SA, Kirstenbosch were awarded ‘GOLD’ and first place in their category!