Yesterday (April 4) DLF Pickseed USA, a subsidiary of DLF Seeds A/S, announced that it had acquired X-Seed — a move that is expected to give DLF increased access and brand awareness to the retail trade of consumer seed and related products — and that the company is expanding its warehouse space.
“We are very pleased to welcome X-Seed into our group. X-Seed has a successful and innovative product portfolio that will enable DLF to further grow our retail presence over the coming years. Chuck Fagin will continue to manage X-Seed for DLF and make sure the transition to DLF will be seamless,” says Claus Ikjaer, DLF Pickseed USA president and CEO.
Founded in 2004 by Fagin, X-Seed created the first coir based combination lawn patch products and offers a full line of premium lawn, pasture, wildflower and wildlife seed mixtures.
“We are very excited to join the DLF team as it will give the X-Seed brand access to an extensive seed and production network with added resources that will allow us to focus on the customer needs and continue to lead in product innovation,” Fagin says.
Rebuilding and Expanding
The warehouse at the Halsey, Oregon, location that burnt down in August 2016, is rebuilt and available for use. “We had a challenging winter with the burnt building not being available,” says Terry Walker, warehouse manager, noting that space was precious. “While the peak of the spring season may be behind us, the reclaimed space will be put to use immediately.”
Along with the rebuild DLF Pickseed USA is also building a new 35,200 sq. ft. warehouse in Tangent, Oregon. This new warehouse will hold an estimated 11 million pounds of seed and allow the company to use more of its own property as opposed to outsourcing storage.
By expanding and improving warehouse logistics for mixing and packaging, DLF Pickseed USA reports it’s investing in the future to accommodate a more robust push into the U.S. retail market. With the new MasterGreen line of consumer-based products and the acquisition of X-Seed, this new space will support growth in retail and wholesale markets.
“We will consolidate our storage in order to improve throughput by having our seed close by, reducing transferring seed from outside locations, while simultaneously improving trucking productivity,” explains Steyn van Niekerk, vice president of operations. “It also allows us to improve the workflow of our seed processing, improving response time.”
He expects the new warehouse to be available for use later this spring.
