Tropical seed company founded in 1981 by Simon Groot, a Dutch seedsman from Enkhuizen in the Netherlands. Groot established it after his family firm, Sluis and Groot, was sold to Sandoz.
East-West Seed produces hybridised vegetable seeds for smallholder farmers in the tropics. It set up its first base in the Philippines in 1982. Its first product was "Jade Star", a hybridised bitter gourd (ampalaya) resistant to downy mildew.
By the 2020s the company's seeds had improved the incomes of 20m small farmers in more than 80 countries, spanning Asia, Latin America and Africa. Its red-arrow logo was as well known to those farmers as the sign for Coca-Cola.
In 2017 it sold 24m "value-packs", enough for a small plot, for around a dollar each. Profits were reinvested in growth and research. The company also ran a programme in which successful farmers trained their neighbours.
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