Dec 17, 2012

Seedway turns 50

Seedway will celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2013.

The Hall, N.Y.-based seed company is a subsidiary of GROWMARK of Bloomington, Ill. Its beginnings go back to 1923, when Robson Seed Farms, a small mail-order vegetable and flower seed company, was founded in Hall.

In the early 1960s, the company expanded with the addition of Robson Quality Seeds, a marketing arm. It was in 1963 that the company partnered with Carl Fribolin of Geneva, N.Y. That partnership marked the beginning of Seedway, and the company’s name was officially changed to Seedway Inc. in 1971. The partnership formed in 1963 is the genesis of the 50th anniversary, said Bruce Ulmer, marketing director for Seedway.

The 1970s were a growth time for Seedway, Ulmer said, with acquisitions made to strengthen the company’s position in the industry. That strengthening continued in the 1980s, when Seedway’s private ownership sold the company to Agway Inc., a cooperative based in Syracuse, N.Y.

“When we were part of Agway, they combined their vegetable seed business with our vegetable seed business under the Seedway team, and it really propelled us forward,” Ulmer said. “Add to that the Burpee commercial seed business acquisition in the mid-90s. It boosted the business because it opened the Southeast to us. We did not have a presence there before then.”

When GROWMARK purchased Seedway in 2002, it was a game-changer for the company, Ulmer said.

“Being a part of the GROWMARK system has allowed Seedway to improve in many ways, including marketing and certain areas of product development and production,” he said.

The company started out with vegetable seed, but as it grew and diversified into farm and turf seed, it used the acquisitions to strengthen its vegetable seed business, Ulmer said.

“Now, it is around 50 percent of our overall business,” he said.

Seedway has some events planned in 2013 to celebrate the anniversary. In May, there will be an open house at the Plant City, Fla., vegetable seed product trials. For more information about that event, call 863-648-4242. In August, there will be product demonstrations at the Hershey, Pa. product trials. Call 800-952-7333 for details about that event.

Ulmer hopes that the qualities that have helped Seedway so far will take it into the next 50 years.

“We’re focused on what we do, which is selling seed,” he said. “It helps us that we are diversified between farm, vegetable and turf seed. Very rarely does each of those have a breakout year in the same year, so having that diversity helps the overall company succeed.”

The company’s flexibility is a huge boost, Ulmer said.

“We’re still small enough, with only 150 employees, to react to trends faster and more efficiently than many of our competitors,” he said.

By Derrek Sigler, Assistant Editor