Danish forage and turf seed firm DLF announced Oct. 6 it has “unified its brand and business” under that name, dropping the “DLF Pickseed” moniker it had used in North America since acquiring Canadian firm Pickseed in 2013.

DLF said it’s also moving its business structure from geographical divisions to “functional groups” and creating “leadership-by-function to bond its teams together versus dividing them by country.”

That new structure “allows for collaboration across operations and shared services that are foundational to sustainable growth and customer success,” the company said in a release.

The announcement follows DLF’s adoption in September of a new logo and “corporate visual identity” (CVI), which it described at the time as “a step in direction of a more uniform and united appearance.”

“This evolution synchronizes the influence of DLF’s highly recognized regional brands into a common, stronger identity,” Neil Douglas, executive vice-president for DLF North America, said Oct. 6. “As DLF, our North American voice becomes amplified, empowered, and important on the global seed stage.”

That said, the Pickseed brand “has a strong legacy in several of the markets we serve, and we will continue to honour it as we evolve,” he added.

Founded in 1947 as Otto Pick Agricultural Service, Pickseed at first focused on direct sales of improved forage seed to southern Ontario livestock producers, based on the then-relatively-new concept of “permanent pasture.”

Otto Pick’s sons and wife took over the business following his death in 1959, expanding into turfgrass products and expanding both west and east with a Manitoba seed production unit, a processing plant in Winnipeg and a distribution site at St-Hyacinthe, Que.

The company later expanded into the U.S. in the 1970s through Oregon-based Pickseed West, and took over one of Canada’s biggest forage and turfgrass seed businesses, the seed division of Maple Leaf Mills, in 1981.

The Pickseed Companies Group was then fully taken over in 2013 by what was then known as DLF-Trifolium. DLF is majority-owned by a Danish grass seed farmers’ co-operative and at the time was already considered the world’s biggest producer of grass and clover seed.

The Pickseed deal gave DLF its toehold in North America, with “access to research and development and production and distribution channels in Canada as well as opportunities the within the U.S. market.” — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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DSV (Deutsche Saatveredelung) announced last week it has reached a deal in early April to buy up all shares of Northstar Seed, which is based at Neepawa, Man. with an Alberta office at Okotoks.

Financial terms of the deal, which is expected to close “within the coming months,” were not disclosed.

DSV, based at Lippstadt, east of Dortmund, said in a release April 26 it will be “able to enrich our portfolio with new genetics, including alfalfa, to serve our customers worldwide even better.”

DSV is already a joint owner with another German seed firm, NPZ-Lembke, in Manitoba-based canola and pea seed breeding firm DL Seeds.

“Through this acquisition, DSV will not only be managing (its) own seed multiplication areas in Canada and North America, but also gaining access to the Canadian as well as the North and South American retail market, thus enlarging its footprint into the Americas significantly,” the company said.

Northstar founders Don Pollock and Rob Wolfe said in the same release that under DSV’s ownership “we are certain that we can expand our business worldwide — a true win-win situation for both companies.”

Founded by alfalfa seed growers in 1982, privately-held Northstar today produces, sells and distributes Canadian-grown forage, turf, cover crop and native grass seed, as well as leafcutter bees and equipment.

Northstar has said it “continues to expand its activities” selling into markets in North and South America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and New Zealand. It also takes part in research and development programs internationally “to ensure that we remain on the cutting edge of plant breeding and genetics.”

DSV, meanwhile, bills itself as one of Germany’s leading plant breeding and seed companies, with gross revenues of over 210 million euros (C$284 million) per year.

DSV, which produces seed for grasses, corn, cereals, oilseed rape and cover crops, has stakes in “well-known” companies in the seed industry in Germany and elsewhere, as well as its own subsidiaries in Denmark, the U.K., France, the Netherlands, Poland, Argentina and Ukraine. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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