Morgan Hill, CA, August 2018 – Sakata Seed America is excited to announce completion of the Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center: a new research and production facility in Woodland, California.
Since announcing plans on March 1st, 2016, the Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center has been under construction to establish all new infrastructure on a sixteen acre site that will enable the company to consolidate and expand R&D, production and marketing activities on a single, state-of-the-art campus, flexible for future expansion.
The Sakata Seed America Woodland Innovation Center is an $18.5M investment, including 219 acres of prime agricultural land in Yolo county. The site includes multiple buildings designed by Matthew Shigihara, principle architect with Stantec Architecture of Sacramento. The main buildings include a Head House for research and development that allows for washing and drying of breeder seed; multiple hi-tech greenhouses for trialing important Sakata crops, like Pepper, Tomato, Watermelon and Melon, a Farm Shop for production maintenance and equipment, drying of seed, and other farm related activities, a Washery building for washing, fluming, and drying all types of wet seed, a 25,000 square foot warehouse housing the latest technology in seed processing equipment and a LEED certified office building.
The facility will be officially inaugurated on Thursday, September 13, when Sakata Seed America will host a Grand Opening ceremony at the site. Attendees will include Dave Armstrong, President of Sakata Seed America, Hiroshi Sakata, President of Sakata Seed Corporation, as well as California state assembly members, the Japanese consulate, media and Sakata customers and business partners. The event will be catered by a local chef utilizing Sakata products grown on site, and will include a virtual tour of the site, as well as Japanese drummers and a traditional Japanese Sake Ceremony.
Sakata Seed America, headquartered in Morgan Hill, California, breeds, produces and markets vegetable and flower seeds in the NAFTA-Central America region. It is a subsidiary of Sakata Seed Corporation based in Yokohama, Japan, one of the world’s leading vegetable and flower seed suppliers.