Gro Alliance Strikes Asset Deal with Beck’s Superior Hybrids

Beck’s and Gro Alliance have reached an agreement under which Beck’s acquires Gro Alliance’s corn seed production location in Howe, Indiana and its soybean seed production location in Mt Pulaski, Illinois.

The deal closed on February 26.

The Deal Details

Gro Alliance will retain field production activities in the Howe, Indiana / Constantine, Michigan area. Seed grown there will be dried locally and moved to the Cuba City, Wisconsin headquarters for conditioning, packaging, and distribution. Gro Alliance will retain its seed nursery station at its current location in Mt Pulaski, Illinois, soybean seed field production activities in the region, and John Endsley will remain with the company as its soybean division director.

In addition to acquiring the two seed production facilities, Beck’s will assume Gro Alliance’s lease on 80,000 square feet of warehouse space in Sturgis, Michigan.

“Gro Alliance is widely recognized as one of the country’s elite seed producers. The facilities and production teams at Howe and Mt Pulaski are both world-class and are perfect fits for the Beck’s network.” said Scott Beck, President. “These acquisitions support Beck’s continued growth and mission to deliver the highest quality seed to our customers.”

Gro Alliance Launches Strategic Reinvestment

The deal also signals the start of a strategic reinvestment plan for Gro Alliance. Future investments will be launched under four pillars: seed production, seed nursery services (US and Chile), germplasm out licensing through Breeder Direct, and agtech incubation support for innovators and new market entrants.

“This is one of the rare, triple-win deals.” said Jim Schweigert, president of Gro Alliance. “First, the employees, contractors, and growers at each site will transition to another strong and future-focused family-owned company. Further, Beck’s gets outstanding seed facilities in top growing locations and Gro Alliance will retain core functions in each area while securing resources to fuel additional investment and growth.”

The deal with Beck’s continues Gro Alliance’s evolution and diversification. In 2019, it initiated a business model revision that sought to diversify the company into a vertically integrated seed supply chain solutions business across multiple crops. In 2020, it launched Breeder Direct (www.breederdirect.com) to offer elite corn and soybean germplasm to independent seed companies. It then announced commercialization partnerships with ZeaKal (www.zeakal.com) in 2021 and BioLumic (www.biolumic.com) in 2023.  In 2024, Gro Alliance entered into an agreement with Seed-X (www.seed-x.com) to bring it’s AI seed improvement technology to the US and opened its first vegetable seed improvement location in Davis, California in December of 2024.

These expansions have positioned Gro Alliance as the only independent company to offer genetics, production, and services across all crop types, including vegetables, row crops, oilseeds, and small grains.

“A constantly evolving industry offers unlimited opportunity for companies that evolve with it.” said Schweigert. “The most exciting thing is that this is just the beginning. We have additional innovation partnerships signed and are actively supporting new and unique business models for independent seed companies.”

Contact Jim Schweigert at jim.schweigert@groalliance.com to see how Gro Alliance can support the vision of your seed company or start up.