Deal paves way for Tropic to become a fully integrated banana genetics leader
Source: Tropic
Norwich, UK-based Tropic has acquired Rahan Meristem, a leading international banana plant propagation company with operations across Latin America, Asia and the Middle East.
The acquisition provides Tropic with large-scale plant production and distribution capacity in the world’s major banana-exporting regions, accelerating the commercial rollout of its next-generation banana varieties and establishing the first fully integrated banana genetics company, spanning variety development, propagation and grower supply.
Bananas are one of the world’s most important agricultural crops with more than 20mn tonnes exported annually. Yet global commercial production relies almost entirely on a single variety, the Cavendish, leaving growers exposed to disease pressure, supply-chain disruption and major threats including Panama disease TR4.
Using advanced gene-editing and breeding technologies, Tropic has developed banana varieties that it claims retain the agronomic performance and consumer qualities of Cavendish bananas while introducing valuable new traits including disease resistance, reduced browning, extended shelf-life and higher yields, helping growers improve productivity and resilience while delivering better-quality fruit and reducing waste across the supply chain.
Following its recent US$105mn Series C funding round and the launch of the first commercially viable new banana varieties in more than 75 years, Tropic is now focused on scaling-up global production and grower adoption. The acquisition of Rahan Meristem provides the propagation capacity, operational expertise and regional presence needed to accelerate commercial deployment worldwide, and marks Tropic’s evolution to an integrated seeds company servicing growers in one of the largest and most important crops globally.
By combining Tropic’s gene-editing pipeline with Rahan’s large-scale propagation expertise and established grower relationships, the company is creating an integrated platform capable of developing, propagating and distributing improved banana varieties at commercial scale. Rahan’s existing grower relationships across the major banana-producing regions provide direct routes to market for Tropic’s new varieties.
Tropic’s CEO Gilad Gershon said: “Welcoming Rahan and its team into Tropic creates a remarkable joint business with the operational scale and global reach to deliver critical banana innovations to growers worldwide. Together, we can help growers improve resilience and productivity while delivering better-quality fruit and reduced waste for consumers and supply chains”.
Tropic is a pioneering tropical seeds company dedicated to developing healthier, more robust and higher-performing varieties of tropical crops using GEiGS and other advanced gene-editing technologies to develop improved crops with traits such as disease resistance, higher yields and reduced browning, helping address major agricultural challenges and deliver benefits for growers, consumers and the environment.
