The company UNIGEN SEEDS SPAIN, heir to the former Akira Seeds (founded in 2007), undertakes research, development and commercialization of hybrid vegetable seeds, which are trialed and tailored to different production areas.
It belongs to the US company United Genetics Seeds Co., with headquarters in California and subsidiaries also in Italy, Turkey, India, Chile and México.
United Genetics joined the Japanese group KAGOME CO., LTD. in 2013, whose mission is expressed by the slogan «True to Nature, the Flavor of Kagome». This business philosophy aims to a sustainable development, were food is a mean to face and solve social issues.
Kagome, founded in Japan in 1899, boasts more than 35 locations worldwide. Its consolidated sales in 2017 reached more than $ 2 billion and it is the most important company of processed tomato, vegetable and fruit products in Japan.
Unigen Seeds Spain operates in the domestic and international market under Akira Seeds and Unigen Seeds brands and it is integrated by seed professionals with extensive careers and proven experience. To our wide portfolio of proprietary varieties we add cooperation agreements with different breeding companies in the United States, Japan, Israel, Netherlands and Italy.
Our research activity is based in Almeria, and results are also trialed in other countries like Mexico, US, Netherlands, Italy, Israel, Turkey or Jordan. We have two resident breeding programs: pepper (Blocky and Half-Long) and tomato (Beef, Cluster, Saladette, Loose and Pink beef).
In recent years, we have been collaborating with the University of Almeria and the Polytechnic University of Valencia both in private projects for the development of our programs and public projects for the development of agriculture and the conservation of genetic resources. We consider this kind of cooperation is vital to maintain the connection between the different players in the research activity and share results advantageously.