Producer
Vilmorin-Clause (Limagrain Group)
Vilmorin-Clause & Cie (Paris, France; listed subsidiary of Limagrain Group — Limagrain is a French agricultural cooperative headquartered in Chappes, Puy-de-Dôme, France, controlled by 1,600+ French farmers; Euronext: VILM) is a major global vegetable seed company operating through the Vilmorin (professional market), Clause, and Mikado (Japan) brands. Limagrain is the world's fourth-largest seed company by revenue and the only farmer-owned cooperative among the top seed multinationals. Vilmorin-Clause vegetable seeds cover tomato, pepper, carrot, melon, cucumber, and salad crops. Mikado Kyowa Seed — the Limagrain subsidiary in Japan — is a major supplier of vegetable seeds to the Japanese market. HM.CLAUSE (Davis, California) is a Limagrain subsidiary that is a major US vegetable seed company for tomato, pepper, melon, and watermelon, previously owned by Bayer and sold to BASF under DOJ conditions, but HM.CLAUSE itself was spun out and acquired by Limagrain.
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Professional Vegetable Seeds (Vilmorin-Clause)
40%Field Crop Seeds (Limagrain)
35%Garden & Consumer Seeds (Vilmorin retail)
15%Mikado Kyowa (Japan)
10%
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Origin2023
Vilmorin is the oldest continuously operating seed company in the world, founded in 1743 in Paris by Pierre d'Andrieux and Mademoiselle Clauzel (who later became Madame Vilmorin). The company operated from the same Paris location on Quai de la Mégisserie for over 150 years. During Napoleon's Continental Blockade (1806-1814), which cut France off from Caribbean sugar cane, Napoleon commissioned Vilmorin to develop improved sugar beet varieties to replace cane sugar — one of the first state-directed crop breeding programs in history. Louis de Vilmorin, the 19th-century scion of the family, pioneered scientific plant selection methodology (the Vilmorin isolation method for selecting superior varieties by evaluating offspring), techniques that became foundational to modern plant breeding. The 1743 Vilmorin family seed company — which supplied seed to the French royal gardens, Napoleon's agricultural programs, and 19th-century European botanists — was eventually acquired by Limagrain, a farmers' cooperative from the volcanic Auvergne highlands of central France where 1,600 French grain farmers pooled their capital to build a global seed empire. The world's oldest seed company brand is now owned by French subsistence grain farmers' descendants.
Vilmorin-Clause & Cie ↗