Traceability: what a Kenyan flower exporter can actually show you, and where each record comes from

1. The certificate is the first traceability record — by design

ISPM 12 says the certificate's unique number "allows for trace-back of consignments"; the exporter's name and address identify the source "to facilitate its trace-back and audit"; the consignee's details exist so that the importing authority can "conduct trace-back of non-compliant imports"; and the place of origin is stated because it is where the commodity "may therefore have been infested." Trace-back is what the document is built for. It links a consignment to a country, an exporter and, where the destination requires it, a named place of production — and it is held by two governments, not by the seller. Every field, and what it must contain →

2. For roses into Europe, the trace goes to the production site

The false codling moth requirement for cut roses from the African continent asks the certificate to carry the codes of the place of production and of the production site, under the route the exporter has followed. For a buyer that is the deepest official trace available on any Kenyan flower: a KEPHIS-approved site, coded, on a government document, for every rose consignment into the European Union or Great Britain. It exists because a pest requires it, and it exists only for roses. The requirement, the four routes, and the codes →

3. Certification schemes: one step back, one step forward

GLOBALG.A.P.'s flowers-and-ornamentals standard requires a documented identification and traceability system that traces registered products back to the registered farm and forward to the immediate customer — one step forward and one step back — with harvest information linking a batch or lot to the production records. Where a grower also runs uncertified production, certified and uncertified products must be segregated and only the certified carry the GGN. MPS-GAP names traceability in its scope; the Kenya Flower Council's standard is benchmarked against GLOBALG.A.P.'s, but we have not read its traceability criteria and do not describe them. GLOBALG.A.P. for flowers → MPS → The Kenyan standard →

What a scheme's traceability proves. That the certified farm can produce, on audit, the record that links a lot to a field and a customer. It does not put that record in the buyer's hands; a buyer asks for it, and a certified farm can answer.

4. The exporter's standing credentials

The Agriculture and Food Authority licenses horticultural exporters and registers pack houses, annually, through its IMIS portal. The licence number, year and expiry, and the pack-house registration where the packer is the same company, are the records that establish who exported the box — and there is no public register on which a buyer can look them up. They are documents to request and read. How to verify a Kenyan supplier, step by step → The export sequence, with every charge listed →

What is not verifiable from outside — and what does not exist

• The exporter's licence and pack-house registration — no public register.
• Kenya Flower Council certification — the Council's register-of-producers page was empty when we read it, and its certification portal returned an access error to our request. We publish no count of certified producers and no way to check one.
• The Kenyan traceability system the Horticultural Crops Directorate describes — a secondary account; we have not read its public interface and do not describe how it works.
• KS 1758, the Kenyan horticulture code of practice — the Directorate's own link to it does not resolve. Why this site treats it as an open regulatory question →
• Stem-level traceability — Kenyan statistics are in tonnes and no public series counts stems by farm.

What to ask, and what a good answer looks like

1. "Which production-site code will the certificate carry?" For roses into Europe there is one, and a supplier who knows the route knows it.
2. "Show me the harvest record for one lot." A GLOBALG.A.P. or MPS-GAP holder has it; the audit requires it.
3. "What is the licence number, year and expiry, and the pack-house registration?" Read the documents; they cannot be checked elsewhere.
4. "What is the GGN, or the MPS letter and quarter?" Those two, unlike the rest, can be checked in a public register.