After a meeting with the Verisem CEO Phillipe Rousseau during the ISF World Seed Congress in Nice, June 2019, Mr. Petar Kazakov (CPSBB) received an invitation to visit SUBA Seed Co., part of Vesisem, in order to further discuss the collaboration between the CSPBB and Verisem/SUBA Seeds and prepare a framework partnership agreement.
Suba Seeds Co., rebranded as Verisem in 2017, is a global seed production company that has grown from an Italian to a global seed production player with acquired seed production companies in Europe and USA. Verisem is an expert on vegetable seed production (large seeds such as peas and beans for the processing industry, small seed vegetables such as cabbage, radish, onion, chicory, parsley etc.). Verisem can produce a variety of both hybrid and open pollinated plants.
A team of CPSBB (Mr. P. Kazakov, Dr. T. Gechev, Dr. M. Benina) visited the SUBA Seed Co. production facilities near Longiano, Italy, on 14.11.2019. The CPSBB team met with the Verisem CEO Mr. Philippe Rouseau and with the SUBA Seeds Co. CEO Mr. Giuseppe Tumedei. During the meeting, Dr. Gechev presented CPSBB and underlined that applied research in the field of vegetable breeding is one of CPSBB’s strategic objectives. Mr. Rousseau presented Verisem and expressed the willingness of his company to establish an effective collaboration with an academic center such as CPSBB. He showed the production facilities of SUBA Seeds Co., which were really impressive. After that, the two teams discussed specific cooperation activities between CPSBB and SUBA Seeds and outlined a future Framework Partnership Agreement. The two parties agreed to explore the possibility of collaborating together in various ways, including:
-
Support of mutual visits by senior personnel, researchers, and co-workers
-
Development of joint research activities (e.g. for crop breeding, developing molecular markers for crops etc. ) and preparation of grant applications (e.g. Horizon Europe)
-
Exchange of information and inviting each other to participate in seminars and conferences organized by the respective institutions.
-
Licensing of CPSBB vegetable varieties in order to commercialise them in Italy, the Middle East and Africa.
-
Metabolomics service analysis of Suba crops
-
Production service for CPSBB varieties.
Mr. Philippe Rousseau (CEO of Verisem) and Mr. Petar Kazakov (CPSBB) during the meeting in the SUBA Seeds Co. seed production facilities in Longiano, Italy, on 14 November 2019.