Dr. Gary Whiteaker brings different perspective to Atlantic Seed Association's meeting
November 5, 2010
Source: e newsletter of the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA)
The Atlantic Seed Association's 58th Annual Convention held Oct. 16-18 in Philadelphia, PA, featured a speaker who took participants outside of the box to look at turf and lawn seed industry issues.
Gary Whiteaker, a director at Verdant Partners, proposed ideas to the nearly 70 attendees about how he would structure a turf and lawn seed business in today's environment.
Whiteaker who wrote an article, "The Grass Seed Industry - A Race to the Bottom," challenged the group to think outside of the box. Whiteaker started by asking attendees why the grass seed industry is still a commodity business and not a proprietary business. He explained that the premise of his article was that everyone wants to sell cheap and everyone is afraid of being undercut by the competition. With a background in the vegetable seed industry, Whiteaker said if he were to start a business he would protect his intellectual property, focus on branding and product quality.
In taking participants through the process of building his ideal grass seed business, he had a few rules of thumb, which include:
- Never damage the customer
"I would look for seedlots not to sell, because I don't want to damage the customer," Whiteaker explained.
- Write comprehensive contracts that spell out seed grower quality specifications
"Then manage the seed grower to grow a crop that meets contract specifications," he says. "The grower never owns the seed crop of my proprietary genetics, they only husband the crop."
- Sell my seed in my branded container
"Even if I have a bummer lot, I will never sell that seed unless I can bring it up to my sales quality specifications," Whiteaker said. "Sometimes, I may need to destroy a lot by sending it to the hammer mill or dump, but I don't want to sell seed that doesn't meet quality standards."
- Provide end-users options.
"I will offer primed, pelleted and/or coated seed in my branded container," he said.
To sum it all up, Whiteaker said "I will be a marketer of my proprietary genetics. I will never be a trader. I want my product to go to the end user in my branded bag and I want to be rewarded for my investment."
He said there is no simple or single answer to change the industry from a commodity business to a proprietary business. "It's a complex paradigm," he noted.
Challenges today include the oversupply of grass seed and too many varieties in the marketplace, Whiteaker said, and there appears to be less investment in private research and more investment in public research, which is the opposite of the rest of the seed industry.
Whiteaker's article is available online at http://www.seedquest.com/id/v/verdantpartners/articles/The_Grass_Seed_Industry.pdf.
The Atlantic Seed Association is a non-profit regional seed trade association of companies and individuals involved in marketing lawn, field, vegetable and flower seeds in the mid-Atlantic and northeastern regions of the United States. However, because of the unique nature of the seed industry in these regions, the Association's membership currently includes companies and individuals from throughout the United States, Canada and several other countries.
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Website: http://www.amseed.org Published: November 5, 2010 |