Vilmorin

Vilmorin is a French seed producer. The company has a long history in France, where it was family-controlled for almost two centuries, and today exists as a publicly traded company owned principally by agro-industrial cooperative Groupe Limagrain, the largest plant breeding and seed company in the European Union. Vilmorin was founded as a plant and seed boutique in 1743 by seed expert Claude Geoffroy and her husband Pierre Andrieux, the chief seed supplier and botanist to King Louis XV. The store was located on the quai de la Mégisserie, a street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. In 1774, their daughter married botany enthusiast Philippe-Victoire Levêque de Vilmorin (1746-1804). Together, they revived the stores and created the Vilmorin-Andrieux House, which later became Vilmorin-Andrieux and Company under the leadership of their son, Philippe André de Vilmorin (1776-1862). Philippe-Victoire de Vilmorin began importing trees and exotic plants into Europe in 1766, starting with the American tulip tree, the domesticated beet, and the rutabaga. Such plants were unknown in Europe prior to Vilmorin-Andrieux's commercial promotion of them for food, fodder and ornamentation. The Vilmorin estate in the Paris suburb of Verrières-le-Buisson, a former hunting lodge of Louis XIV of France, became known for its gardens and arboretum, and the Vilmorin company was headquartered in Verrières-le-Buisson, where it was led by a succession of Vilmorin heirs, including Louis de Vilmorin (1816-1860), Elisa Bailly de Vilmorin (1826-1868), Henry de Vilmorin (1843-1899), Maurice de Vilmorin (1849-1918), Philippe de Vilmorin (1872-1917), Jacques de Vilmorin (1882-1933), Louis de Vilmorin (1883-1944), Louise de Vilmorin (1902-1969), Olivier de Vilmorin (1904-1962), Roger de Vilmorin (1905-1980), and André de Vilmorin (1907-1987). The company produced the first seed catalog for farmers and academics. In 1856, Louis de Vilmorin published "Note on the Creation of a New Race of Beetroot and Considerations on Heredity in Plants", establishing the theoretical groundwork for the modern seed-breeding industry.