The vast country with the world’s largest population has a compounding growth rate of 8% a year in its vegetable seed industry.
India is the single largest market for Winseed’s beetroot varieties grown for table dining.
The family-owned Carrfields’ subsidiary also sells its seed range of mainly carrot and beetroot to New Zealand and Egypt.
Winseed will breed and develop more vegetable seed varieties at Carrfields’ new 20 hectare research and development site at Spring Farm, south of Ashburton, with the first phase of a multimillion-dollar development to be carried out over the next year.
India is the main target of new and improved high-performing varieties.
Winseed has exported seed to the country for the past 10 years and has a team of more than 40 staff based at Hyderabad.
Chief executive Tom Sherratt said the company had managed to build a large market share in beetroot seed in India over the past four to five years.
A "handful" of competitors globally — namely from Europe — were trying to stay in front of each other so better seed solutions were needed to protect or grow the market share, he said.
He said the 60% share was a big win that had put the company on the map and given it energy to invest and grow the business also outside of India to the Americas, parts of Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.
"Certainly the goal at the moment is to defend it because a lot of our other competitors don’t quite like we have that slice of the market. So, the focus at the moment is bringing succession varieties through our R&D programme and commercialise them in the market. So, firstly, to defend that 60% market share because it hasn’t been easy to get there and because it’s a significant portion of that total market we are realistic about growing that further, but that’s not to say we couldn’t do it either."
So far Winseed has five carrot seed varieties and three beetroot varieties. The goal is to have fewer varieties suited for all markets and growing and climatic conditions.
Mr Sherratt said they had invested in beetroot plant genetics last year from a leading French company to keep ahead of competitors.
"That gives us a lot of genetic potential which is sitting in our cupboard at the moment that our breeders are working on and incorporating into new varieties. We can cross this with the genetics that we have already bred or already have in our programme. This just brings a whole wide range of diversity in beetroot plant genetics with different disease packages, different consumer traits that allow us to breed the next generation of varieties to stay in front of that competition."
He said beetroot was used in traditional Indian dishes and juices and demand for it was increasing from a growing middle class seeking better-quality vegetable varieties.
They wanted juicier and crunchier vegetables, high in nutrients, which tasted better and had a longer shelf life, he said.
"The health benefits of beetroot is probably more widely spoken about or known in a market like India than it is here in New Zealand."
Winseed’s seed is usually sold to suppliers who distribute it to growers via retailers, but in India it has a team performing this task.
Winseed’s share of the carrot seed market was smaller, with stable sales in India and other markets and ambitions to grow this in coming years, he said.
Mr Sherratt said the new research and development site near Ashburton would allow the company to invest in more long-term breeding.
He said novel vegetable varieties would be created, bred, developed and maintained at the site.
"Up until now we have leased various sites and resources around Canterbury to try and make that work, but we are at a scale and stage now where we need to bring that in-house."
The new research farm will have a breeding centre with the latest glasshouses, nurseries, grow houses and trial plots as well as a warehouse with specialised equipment for seed cleaning, processing and filling orders.
New varieties can take more than 10 years to commercialise depending on the genetic material.
Egypt was chosen as a hub to service the North African and Middle Eastern market and a new trial station was being opened there.
New beetroot and carrot varieties developed in Mid Canterbury — as well as other vegetable crops — would be screened and selected for North African conditions.
