Seed company’s future perched on cutting edge

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Published: November 28, 2002

The Dyck brothers have been putting their money where their mouths are

for years. They’re now adding their future to the increasingly large

bet.

But Lloyd Dyck, president and co-owner of Brett-Young Seeds, said he

isn’t worried about the $20.7 million investment his relatively small

seed company is making in high-tech research and development, even if

it has swallowed up his company’s profits and sent it to the bank to

borrow money.

“If I wasn’t here all the time I would be (worried),” said Dyck, whose

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company’s new suite of laboratories is trying to develop cutting edge

canola products such as sulfur-providing rhizobacteria.

Lloyd and his brother Tim have staked their company’s future on

avoiding the commodity business model, and Lloyd said they are willing

to take risks and try to grow rather than be cautious and static. That

means trying to develop new products and markets rather than fighting

for a bigger piece of an existing pie.

“You continually have to invest, but if you plan right, if you work

right, it can be rewarding at the other end if you can deliver

something that people value,” said Dyck, who works out of the company’s

head office in Winnipeg.

“We like to place our emphasis on where we think the opportunities are.

The idea of doing something for less money than somebody else is doing

it doesn’t make any sense to us whatsoever. If we can do it because we

have a strategic advantage, or because we can offer something unique to

the marketplace, then we’ll get involved in it. We just focus on

opportunities. We do not focus on areas that other people are mucking

around in.”

Brett-Young Seeds concentrates on three markets: canola, forage grass

and turf grass seed. It’s where they think they, and the Prairies, have

unique advantages.

Dyck is most excited about the American turf grass market, which is

used for such things as lawns, golf courses and sports fields. It’s a

growing market and sales of turf grass seed to U.S. buyers now make up

about half of Brett-Young’s annual sales, which Dyck said are more than

$50 million.

As the U.S. population grows, Dyck expects to see the market grow.

He also expects to see the forage grass seed market expand in Western

Canada, with more prairie land turning over to hay production for

livestock feeding.

He thinks the canola market will keep demanding more valuable

innovations, so he wants his company to produce and supply leading

varieties with unique products, such as the sulfur-providing

rhizobacteria that he believes will raise canola yields by 10 to 15

percent.

The company’s gleaming new labs at its Winnipeg headquarters are taking

what he believes are proven strains of rhizobacteria, developed with

Agriculture Canada researchers, and trying to find ways to make them

commercially viable.

Research at Brett-Young’s canola plots is focused on developing

varieties with new, genetically modified traits that Dyck thinks

growers will want. The rhizobacteria project does not involve genetic

modification and is separate from the variety research.

Lloyd oversees Brett-Young’s strategic direction and planning, while

Tim focuses on new business development and sales. The brothers work

together, but do they tend to easily agree with each other’s ideas?

“Not really,” Lloyd said with a laugh. “As good as most brothers do, I

think. We try.”

But the strong-willed men, both in their 40s, have managed to work

together since they took over the company 14 years ago, when their

father, Peter, died. Working together was something he pounded into

their heads when they were children.

“Our father always said we have our own business, and if someone in the

family wants to work there, they can,” Lloyd said. “Work together. Work

with family.”

Lloyd and Tim have worked with their two other brothers and a sister.

Only one sibling, a sister, has not worked at the company.

Peter became president and part-owner of Brett-Young Seeds in 1972,

when he bought the company name and with some investors began building

it up as a serious seed business. The original owners, Bill Brett and

Bob Young, who started the business in 1934, had sold it to McKenzie

Seeds in 1967.

Lloyd and Tim began working with their father and in the years since

his death have both been committed to pouring profits back into the

business, which some of Brett-Young’s shareholders were not as keen

about.

So they gradually bought out the shareholders and now own the whole

company. If their research and development yields the products they

expect, their present growth rate of 10 to 15 percent per year could

rise.

It would be easy to sell the company to a bigger player if the new

products become a success, Dyck said, but the last thing he wants to do

is walk away from the company he has built.

“I see this personally,” Dyck said. “It’s a legacy. We’re not looking

to sell.”

Selling the company to someone else wouldn’t just take the brothers

out of the business they are committed to, “it would pull out the rug

from under the company’s growth, because the company would have to

finance the purchase by whoever buys it. Then the company stalls its

growth and development,” he said.

“We think there are so many opportunities, we just want to see it

continue to grow.”

About the author

Ed White

Ed White

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