The Coca-Cola of farm chemicals is about to be put to the Pepsi challenge by a rival manufacturer.
Cheminova Canada is hoping farmers will apply its Glyfos brand of glyphosate on their fields side-by-side with Monsanto’s Roundup this year.
Aside from slight differences in surfactants, marketing manager Jim Beechey said the products are the same.
“The point is that the efficacy is the same, so for all intents and purposes, from the user’s point of view, there’s nothing we can say that makes it different from Monsanto’s product.”
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Glyfos contains slightly more glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup. “But that’s neither here nor there,” said Beechey.
The label for the two products is the same, he said, other than that Glyfos can’t be applied to Roundup Ready crops.
“I guess you could call it a generic version of the product but I hate to use that word because it is a proprietary label,” he said. “We put our own brand name on it.”
Cheminova, a multinational chemical company based in Denmark, sells Glyfos in 66 countries around the world, including the United States.
It’s been selling Glyfos in Eastern Canada for three years, and now feels comfortable enough here to try to crack into the market on the Prairies, said Beechey. He wouldn’t comment on volumes sold, other than to say sales are increasing.
The company’s global strategy is to establish itself as the alternative to Monsanto’s line of chemicals, he said.
“For years, growers have only had one product to choose from. We’re sort of the alternate glyphosate.”
In Western Canada, the chemical will be sold through a network of local, independent dealers, said Beechey. These dealers will set the price.
“I would suspect that if I’m selling a new product, an unknown quantity to the grower, you would probably want to be slightly more attractive in your pricing.”
Beechey admits his company faces a tough battle in marketing against the popular Roundup.
Monsanto launched a new kind of Roundup, called Transorb this spring. But Beechey said he thinks farmers will stick with the cheaper, original Roundup, and maybe give his product a try too.
