KWS Vegetables builds up business in Mexico

Culiacán, 20 June 2022

KWS Vegetables will open a location in Mexico as part of its international growth strategy. A land plot of 10 hectares was acquired in the municipality of Navolato in the state of Sinaloa on the west coast of the country. This region is one of the most important areas in Mexico for vegetables and other crops. There, the company will set up a R&D facility to carry out breeding activities on tomato, pepper and hot pepper and to support screening activities in cucumber, melon and watermelon. KWS is active in Mexico since the end of 2020, and in 2021 it swiftly began to grow a team with dedicated specialists to expand its activities throughout the Mexican vegetables market.

The recently acquired site in Navolato.

Thom Schepers, Global Head of Sales & Marketing: “We already have a commercial portfolio for tomato seeds in place and we have started trialing long cucumber varieties and watermelon in main hotspots for these important crops last year. With the establishment of the new location in Navolato, we will now enter full speed into our own R&D activities, and we are delighted to offer high quality varieties for crops like tomato, pepper and hot pepper as well as cucumbers, melon and watermelon to our customers in the future.” In addition to domestic consumption, the Mexican vegetable market is an important export market for the United States and Canada.KWS’ entry to the long-term growth market for vegetable seeds is based on a greenfield approach with organic growth, supplemented by suitable acquisitions and the sales of licensed-in varieties. This strategy included the acquisition of Pop Vriend Seeds, a very important player in spinach seed breeding, which is part of the KWS Group since 2019. In addition, KWS acquired the Italian vegetable seed company Geneplanta (now: KWS Vegetables Italia), a specialist in breeding, production, and sales of tomato varieties, in March 2021. In parallel, KWS has been concentrating on staffing the new business division as well as on launching its own breeding activities in Brazil, Spain and Turkey.

About KWS^*

KWS is one of the world’s leading plant breeding companies. Around 6,000 employees in 70 countries generated net sales of around €1.3 billion in fiscal 2020/2021. A company with a tradition of family ownership, KWS has operated independently for 165 years. It focuses on plant breeding and the production and sale of seed for corn, sugarbeet, cereals, vegetables, rapeseed and sunflowers. KWS uses leading-edge plant breeding methods to continuously improve yield for farmers and plants’ resistance to diseases, pests and abiotic stress. To that end, the company invested more than €250 million last fiscal year in research and development.

^{* All figures excluding the shares of the equity-accounted companies AGRELIANT GENETICS LLC., AGRELIANT GENETICS INC. and KENFENG – KWS SEEDS CO., LTD.}