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With the rise of biotechnology, a new era began in vegetable breeding—one that promised to accelerate breeding timelines by years, while also boosting seed quality and production efficiency. So more than ever, significant investments were needed for innovation in vegetable breeding. On our own, we were too small to make the significant investments that this fundamental research required. So, we had an idea: why not join forces with other like-minded, family-owned seed companies? By collaborating, we could share the cost of pre-competitive research while still using the results to develop our own breeding breakthroughs. And so, in 1989, KeyGene was born—a groundbreaking collaboration between Dutch seed companies, driving global innovation in plant biotechnology and paving the way for a more sustainable future in agriculture.
In 1989, we co-founded KeyGene, now one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. This partnership opened the door to advanced technologies like DNA analysis, allowing us to identify and select desirable plant traits with greater speed and precision. By the 1990s, we had built our own in-house laboratory, bringing this vital research capability directly into our company. Nowadays, we combine our breeders' expertise, experience, and creativity with modern, highly advanced techniques, saving a lot of time in the entire breeding process.