Happy 40th, Vis Seed!

Chris Beytes

It’s fascinating to learn the layers of connection between some of the companies in our little industry. Take Vis Seed Company, for instance, which this year is celebrating 40 years as a family business, headquartered in Arcadia, California.

Vis Brothers Ltd. in 1933, the forerunner to today’s Vis Seed Company. That’s Jan Vis, second from left, grandfather of the Jan Vis who founded the American company that’s celebrating its 40th year in business.

You may know them as a solid western regional supplier of seeds and plants (but they serve all of North America and beyond). But did you know the founder, Jan Vis, was born in the heart of flower seed country, Enkhuizen, Holland, and that his father, Jacob, and his grandfather, Jan, were also seedsmen? They owned Vis Brothers Ltd., flower breeders that were skilled enough to have won an All-America Selections bronze medal for Velvet Ball Petunia in 1939.

But in the ’60s, the family decided to sell the business to Royal Sluis, so Jan the younger decided to immigrate to the U.S. to take the job as International Sales Manager for Howard Bodger and Bodger Seeds. From Bodger, he jumped over to another venerable seed brand, Burpee Seeds, as their West Coast Sales Manager.

It was after that, in the spring of 1985, when Jan decided it was time to start his own business to meet the need for a service-oriented seed and plug company in Southern California and the Western U.S. Jan’s son Ben joined the company in 1987 and then son Hans in 1988.

Today, with Ben’s son, Grant, the third generation at Vis (and the fifth-generation Vis family seedsman), Vis Seed is a distributor for more than 70 vegetable and flower seed breeders and producers worldwide, including Hem, PanAmerican, Sakata, Syngenta, Takii and more.

Congrats to the whole Vis family of seedsmen!  GT