After nearly 30 years in the seed and produce industry, Mike Vanoli began to notice something interesting in the market: lettuce genetics started to look the same and customer service at the grower level was removed from the seed development process. As a thought leader who has seen all sides of the business, Mike wanted to fix the lack of creativity in bringing new products to market. He saw an opportunity to deliver specialized genetics straight to customers in a way that only a small, flexible breeding company could provide. He recognized a need in the market for a fully-integrated, responsive company – one that would work directly with growers in every stage of the process to develop fresh lettuce varieties.
In the spring of 2014, Mike launched Pinnacle Seed to combine fundamental, traditional seed disciplines with advanced, non-GMO, cutting-edge technology in genetics to produce high-yielding lettuce varieties.
Today, we produce romaine, iceberg, and green leaf varieties for growers in the Salinas Valley, San Joaquin Valley and the Southwest Desert region. In addition to producing several generic products, we are exclusive producers of three proprietary products and have several new varieties under development.
The Pinnacle Seed warehouse is located in Mike’s home town of Soledad, appropriately placed with a view of Pinnacles National Park from the front door.
We know growers want to work directly with their seed genetics provider. We know they also want in-the-field service that only a locally-owned, small company can provide. That’s why our customers are such an important part of the development and production process.
We value our one-on-one relationships. As part of our commitment to customer service, we sell directly to growers without the use of brokers in our major growing regions. Our goal is to provide customers with sophisticated, timely industry information, as well as the best products available.
With the unique challenges that occur in lettuce production, we believe collaboration with customers is the key to our success.