By Mᴀʀʏ Mᴡᴇɴᴅᴇ,
For years now, we’ve talked about sea freight like it’s the magic fix for Kenya’s flower exports. Trials have been done. Containers have left Kenya and arrived in Europe with good results. In March 2025, Maersk, along with partners, successfully moved a controlled-atmosphere reefer container filled with Kenyan cut flowers from Naivasha to Mombasa, then by sea to the Port of Rotterdam.
The numbers are solid too, sea freight can cut carbon emissions and ease the brutal freight costs growers face every peak season. Maersk’s 2024 East Africa logistics briefings and FlowerWatch data similarly reported that sea freight can lower per-stem emissions by 80–90%, depending on vessel type and transit time. A floriculture sector analysis also confirmed that sea freight is at least 90% more environmentally friendly than air and can also deliver around 50% cost savings.
To further ascertain this Freshfel Europe’s 2023 logistics carbon study found that airfreighting fresh produce emits 8 to 10 times more CO₂ per kilo than sea freight using controlled-atmosphere (CA) reefers. That translates to an 85–90% reduction. It’s also worth noting that emission savings depend on maintaining an unbroken cold chain and using modern, efficient reefers. Delays, power losses, or breaks in cold storage erode those savings.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth: we’re still nowhere near where we should be. In 2025, sea freight remains a scattered, farm-by-farm experiment. The March 2025 “first reefed” trial from Naivasha to Rotterdam proved feasibility and is widely reported as the first complete multimodal journey, though it remains a pilot, not a sector-wide system. Although there were earlier pilots, such as in 2021, they typically involved partial sea journeys, shorter routing, or focused on packaging trials rather than full logistical runs from farm to market.
The cold chain gaps at Mombasa haven’t been resolved. Industry discussions at Flower Logistics Africa 2025 raised concerns over cold-chain readiness, container access, and port efficiency, highlighting Mombasa’s limited capacity for perishable freight.
Controlled atmosphere containers are available in theory but unpredictable in practice, especially when avocado and vegetable exporters snap them up first. And no sector-wide logistics framework exists to move flowers by sea at meaningful, consistent volumes.
Meanwhile, airfreight continues to drain margins, chewing up as much as half the landed cost in Europe, with rates jumping on short notice and capacity tightening every peak season.
Airfreight alone won’t keep this industry afloat much longer. The world won’t pause while Kenya figures this out. Markets are shifting, consumer preferences are changing, and buyers are aligning with suppliers who can guarantee affordable, lower-carbon, and reliable deliveries. If we don’t move fast to fix our logistics blind spots, the only thing left to export will be excuses.