Our Specialty Crop Improvement Process
The Kemin Specialty Crop Improvement (SCI) process begins with bio-prospecting, a specific type of botanical research, to identify plants that naturally produce molecules with potential active or functional benefits for the markets we serve.
When the plant species is identified, the Kemin team of plant breeders, plant biochemists and analytical chemists use conventional breeding techniques to develop thousands of varieties of the plant. The variation is biochemically measured to determine the amount of a targeted molecule, and the process continuously repeats until we find a variation of the plant that is high in the desired molecule and practical to grow agronomically.
Once an ideal “botanical factory” has been established, it is propagated into thousands of identical plants to be scaled up into production at Kemin growing locations around the world.
As part of continuous crop improvement, Kemin scientists continue breeding new lines of specialty crops even when an ideal line has been established. This ongoing process ensures improved production efficiencies and continued discovery.
