Becker Underwood, leading producer of rhizobium inoculants, beneficial nematodes, seed and landscape coatings, and other turf and agricultural products, achieved record sales during its 2003 fiscal year ended Sept. 30, according to CEO Roger Underwood. Combined sales from its operating divisions exceeded $60 million, up over 24 percent from the previous fiscal year, with sales projected to reach $70 million in 2004.
“It is extremely gratifying to have earned the trust necessary to expand our relationships with current customers and to establish relationships with new ones,” Underwood says. “We will continue to aggressively develop new technologies and refine our capabilities in order to enhance the value we bring to our customers. Everyone at Becker Underwood is pleased that we have maintained our 21-year unbroken record of increasing sales in every year since the company was founded in 1982.”
“Since 1982, the company has grown through a combination of new product development and strategic acquisitions,” says Becker Underwood President Peter Innes. “We are stable, well capitalized and headed for continual expansion.” Innes states that the 2003 sales increase was the result of growth through acquisitions on 3 continents over the past year.
The 2002 purchase of Urbana Laboratories was the company’s most recent acquisitions. That transaction also added an inoculant plant in Brazil and a seed coating company in Idaho to Becker Underwood’s holdings. This followed the acquisition of the Sepiret line of colorants and coatings in Europe, and the establishment of Becker Underwood, France. A $2-million expansion of the Becker Underwood inoculant manufacturing facility in St. Joseph, Missouri is in the final stages of completion.