France
Enza Zaden's babyleaf, open field lettuce and endive varieties are highly praised around the world. Enza Zaden France plays a major role in the development and success of these varieties. This subsidiary consists of Enza Zaden France Commercial S.A.S. and Enza Zaden France S.A.S. Centre de Recherche. The first deals with all commercial activities, the latter with research and development. There is also a second research center in Châteaurenard, South of France, a breeding station for fruit vegetable including melon.
Top varieties
Our leafy crops are much appreciated. Within the witloof chicory segment, Metafora remains the favourite variety, and thanks to an efficient cooperation between research teams, producers and the processing industry, we gained a significant market share in babyleaves. Our greenhouse lettuces, red and green oakleaves, batavias, romaines and butter lettuces are in great demand. Finally, thanks to the joint effort of German and French teams, two top varieties have been developed in corn salad: Juwallon and Accent. As the biggest production site for corn salad within the European Union is the Nantes area, situated near Allonnes, these are very important products for us. Although we particularly focus our attention on the species mentioned above, our range also includes products such as eggplant, cucumber, squash and tomato.
Two breeding stations
Our sales office and main breeding station are both strategically located in the Loire valley near Allonnes. This area is known as 'le jardin de France', the garden of France, because of its microclimate that is very favourable for vegetable growing. Moreover, the Loire valley is practically situated between northern and southern Europe. Therefore, the varieties we develop are completely attuned to the demand of different local markets. Our main breeding activities at this location concerns lettuce and endive, but our programmes also includes radish, corn salad, radicchio and pumpkin (mainly for the rest of the Enza Zaden Group)
Since 2007, we have a second breeding station, which is located in the middle of an important vegetable growing area, near Châteaurenard in the south east of France. In spring and summer, we mainly concentrate on seed production and tomato, cucumber and melon breeding. During wintertime, we select our greenhouse lettuce varieties.