‘I’m the first vegetable guy at KWS,’ says Paul Degreef, head of the KWS Vegetables business unit. With a revenue of 1.5 billion euros, the German company KWS is the fourth largest plant-breeding company in the world. Having grown to this size producing seeds for cereals, sugar beets and maize, KWS is now targeting the fast-growing market in vegetable seeds.
Degreef’s job is to set up his own division from his office in Plus Ultra II. KWS has bought a plant-breeding company in Andijk and set up testing locations in Spain, Turkey and Brazil, with more on the way in Italy, India, China and Mexico.
The atmosphere is fantastic with so many young people around
Ten employees work at the Wageningen campus now, but plans to establish their own research lab are at an advanced stage. In three years’ time there will be 40 to 50 people working for KWS Vegetables in Wageningen.
KWS is developing new varieties of tomato, bell pepper, cucumber, melon and watermelon. The company already had projects with WUR on agricultural crops before coming to Wageningen, but now it also wants to collaborate on vegetables. Degreef envisions partnerships with the Plant Physiology and Genetics research groups and WUR’s flavour research team. Degreef has worked for various plant-breeding companies since graduating from Wageningen in 1986. Now he is happy to be back: ‘There are lots of good researchers at the campus and the atmosphere is fantastic with so many young people around.’
There are about 100 companies on campus. We introduce them to you in Resource. This time: KWS in Plus Ultra II.