As a historic player in the seed industry, Vilmorin-Mikado has launched a new signature for its salad range to meet global market demand.
Vilmorin-Mikado dedicates 16% of revenue to research, and that commitment is paving the way for new and improved salad offerings around the world. The company recently launched a new signature for its salad range: “Experience the Leafy Choice”; the signature illustrates the strategy Vilmorin-Mikado has been implementing that is based on range width, high quality and innovations. .
The salad range thus integrates new salad families such as spinach and baby leaves that exhibit superior pest resistance to the most current race of Bremia BI: 36 EU.
Today the company’s commitment to expanding salad range offerings has provided a complete and innovative line of 500 varieties that meet the unique demands of every sector of the global salad market.
Vilmorin-Mikado is also innovating by developing a breeding program for “Greens” (baby leaves other than lettuce), the only one in the world, to date.
“The originality of Vilmorin-Mikado’s new signature comes from the emphasis and investment the company has demonstrated in strengthening its research, development and marketing teams. Each species is assigned to a product specialist manager. The model provides for invaluable species expertise and the ability to focus a concerted effort within one species of salads,” says Catherine Moulenat, Salad International manager for Vilmorin-Mikado.
“We want to show how versatile and original our salad range is, which offers products that are adapted to every market, for all types of production and consumption habits around the world,” she says.
In preparation and support of the “Experience the Leafy choice” launch, around 30 field days have been planned at locations around the world, with the first field day held on September 5, 2019 at Vilmorin‑Mikado Headquarters in France. The events will showcase the innovations within the expanded Vilmorin-Mikado range, highlighting the new products’ resistance to the latest race of Bremia BI:16-36EU.
Catherine Moulenat says that the day was filled with many presentations from the new range of salads and saw diverse participation.
“We had over 120 participants from all over the world that represented growers and processors,” she says. “We also had many participants from the urban and vertical gardening sectors; which are two areas we are beginning to see increase rapidly in Japan and China.”
In an invitation to explore the new “Experience the Leafy choice” signature, Vilmorin-Mikado has also created a customer-focused recipe booklet, freely downloadable on the Vilmorin-Mikado website. The recipe collection provides fresh and unique culinary dishes using different salad varieties.
“Salads are cultivated on all five continents and greatly appreciated by consumers for health benefits and ease of preparation,” says Moulenat. “The “Experience the Leafy choice” signature is a long-term strategy Vilmorin-Mikado will continue to develop with great innovations to come!”
