Amenity grass seeds business British Seed Houses, a wholly owned subsidiary of Germinal Holdings Limited, has been re-named Germinal Seeds GB with effect from 2 December 2013.

William Gilbert, managing director of Germinal Seeds GB, formerly British Seed Houses.

The change has been made to clarify its position as a part of the Germinal Holdings group and achieve consistency with other Germinal group companies throughout the world and does not impact in any other way on operations that run from the company’s Lincoln and Bristol units.

Germinal Seeds GB is part of the largest family-owned amenity and forage seed business in the British Isles, a company based in Northern Ireland and dating back to 1825. Managing director William Gilbert, a direct descendant of the founder, says the move is a reflection of the group’s progress and is particularly relevant to the global positioning of the group.

“Germinal Holdings’ interests now extend well beyond the British Isles, with seed production, research and development leading to significant sales taking place as far afield as New Zealand but also throughout Europe and across other continents,” he explains. “There are clear advantages in adopting a common name across our businesses, for consistency but also to convey common standards and aspirations.

“The staff, customers, suppliers and partners of British Seed Houses will see no change other than the new name of Germinal Seeds GB and we will continue to provide the same service, the same commitment and the same high quality products.

“We will also continue to base a large proportion of our grass seed production in Britain as it offers significant advantages to us in quality control. Whilst it will be ‘business as usual’, the name change is also a sign of our intention to maintain strong progress across our business, through investment, continued innovation and expansion.”

Germinal Seeds GB’s amenity business – www.germinalamenity.com – supplies a full range of Grade ‘A’ amenity grass seed mixtures, fertilisers and wildflower mixtures direct to the professional end user, including greenkeepers, groundsmen and landscapers. It fully funds the only UK based amenity seed grass breeding programme, based at IBERS (Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences) at Aberystwyth University.

Concurrently with the change of British Seed Houses to Germinal Seeds GB, the Northern Ireland subsidiary Samuel McCausland Ltd has become Germinal Seeds NI.