Sun World International has announced the formation of Sun World Innovations, a new entity that will shepherd and drive growth of its fruit breeding/variety development, licensing, international investments and agriculture technology pursuits.
Sun World’s executive vice president David Marguleas will also serve as president of Sun World Innovations.
In addition to its own California farming activities, Bakersfield-based company Sun World operates one of the world’s leading fruit breeding programmes and licenses its intellectual property (IP) to many hundreds of producers and marketers around the world.
The company’s variety development staff is based in Bakersfield and focuses on developing new proprietary varieties of table grapes and stonefruit, while the licensing team maintains offices in California, as well as in Europe, South America, South Africa and Australia.
As well as guiding Sun World’s own IP and licensing activities, Sun World Innovations will steer the the broader agricultural, technology and international interests of Renewable Resources Group (RRG), the Los Angeles-based firm that acquired the California grower-shipper in August 2013. RRG owns, operates and develops agricultural, water and renewable energy assets and companies both domestically and internationally.
“Crop input, water, harvest and labour efficiencies, along with fruit and vegetable breeding, are among the opportunities that Sun World Innovations will explore,” Marguleas said.
“Sun World Innovations will harness its deep, hands-on horticultural knowledge and expertise in existing and new ag technologies, and the international licensee platform we’ve built with growers and marketers around the world, to provide innovative solutions to real challenges faced by the ag sector worldwide,” he continued. 'Sun World's industry-leading agronomic skills, coupled with our owner’s expertise in the sustainable water, agriculture and energy sectors, make for a powerful combination to achieve this.'
Sun World, a longstanding US-based producer and marketer of fresh fruit, operates one of the world's largest table grape and stonefruit breeding programmes.
