Thirty-five brand guides to the seed trade — family seed houses, cooperatives, nonprofits and breeders.
Seed companies come in unusual shapes: family firms, worker cooperatives, employee-owned companies and nonprofits. These guides set out how each is organised and what it offers.
Who owns the seed house
Johnny’s Selected Seeds has been employee-owned since 2012; Sow True Seed is employee-owned; Fedco is a worker-and-consumer co-op; Southern Exposure is a worker cooperative; and Seed Savers Exchange and Native Seeds/SEARCH are nonprofits. Older houses have corporate owners: Burpee has been owned by George Ball, Inc. since 1991, Ferry-Morse by Central Garden & Pet, and Botanical Interests by Epic Gardening.
Beyond the US
The guides also cover Canada’s West Coast Seeds and William Dam, England’s Thompson & Morgan and Kings Seeds, Italy’s Franchi Sementi, France’s Baumaux and Switzerland’s biodynamic Sativa Rheinau.
How to use these guides
Each guide covers a seed house’s visual identity — its packets, palette and voice — and how it is organised, as design commentary. The table at the end gathers the essentials.
Heirloom and nonprofit seed
Baker Creek, Seed Savers Exchange, Southern Exposure, Wild Garden Seed, Hudson Valley, Truelove and Native Seeds/SEARCH.
- Baker Creek — The family Missouri seed house, from 1998, offering fifteen hundred heirloom, open-pollinated, non-GMO varieties.
- Seed Savers Exchange — The member-supported Iowa nonprofit, from 1975, conserving twenty-five thousand heritage varieties on its Heritage Farm.
- Southern Exposure Seed Exchange — The Virginia worker cooperative, part of Acorn Community, offering heirloom seed adapted to the Mid-Atlantic since 1982.
- Wild Garden Seed — The Oregon organic seed farm of Frank and Karen Morton, known for original open-pollinated breeding and its OSSI founding role.
- Hudson Valley Seed Co — The New York open-pollinated seed company that grew from a seed library and commissions artists for its Art Pack covers.
- Truelove Seeds — The Philadelphia seed company that shares culturally-important open-pollinated seed through a network of growers, returning revenue to them.
- Native Seeds/SEARCH — The Tucson nonprofit conserving arid-adapted Southwest seed in respectful stewardship with Indigenous communities since 1983.
Co-ops and employee-owned
Johnny’s, Sow True, Fedco, Snake River, Botanical Interests, Burpee and Ferry-Morse.
- Johnny’s Selected Seeds — The Maine seed company that has been one hundred per cent employee-owned since 2012, serving growers and gardeners.
- Sow True Seed — The employee-owned Asheville seed company, from 2009, offering five hundred open-pollinated, heirloom and non-GMO varieties.
- Fedco Seeds — The Maine seed cooperative, from 1978, organised as a worker-and-consumer co-op offering cold-hardy Northeast-adapted seed.
- Snake River Seed Cooperative — The Idaho cooperative and benefit corporation, grower- and employee-owned since 2022, growing seed for the Intermountain West.
- Botanical Interests — The Colorado seed company, now owned by Epic Gardening, offering organic, heirloom and non-GMO seed in illustrated packets.
- Burpee — W. Atlee Burpee & Co., the 1876 Philadelphia-founded seed house, owned by George Ball, Inc. since 1991 and based in Warminster, Pennsylvania.
- Ferry-Morse — The 1856-rooted American seed house, owned by Central Garden & Pet via Green Garden Products and based in Norton, Massachusetts.
Canada and Europe
West Coast Seeds, William Dam, Thompson & Morgan, Kings Seeds, Franchi, Baumaux and Sativa Rheinau.
- West Coast Seeds — The family-owned British Columbia seed house, from Delta, offering untreated, non-GMO seed adapted to the Pacific Northwest.
- William Dam Seeds — The Dam family’s Ontario seed house, from 1947, known for untreated seed sold near Dundas for over seventy years.
- Thompson & Morgan — The Ipswich seed and plant house, tracing to 1855 and owned since 2017 by BVG Group through Branded Garden Products.
- Kings Seeds — E. W. King & Co. of Kelvedon, Essex, the independent English seed house founded in 1888 and known for its sweet peas.
- Franchi Sementi — The Italian family seed house near Bergamo, which says it has traded since 1783 and offers over a thousand varieties.
- Baumaux — Graines Baumaux, the French family seed house founded in 1943, known for a vast catalogue and hundreds of tomato varieties.
- Sativa Rheinau — The Swiss biodynamic seed house at Rheinau, a foundation-affiliated stock company certified Demeter and Bio Suisse.
Organic seed farms
Territorial, High Mowing, Adaptive Seeds, Uprising, Wood Prairie, Turtle Tree and Renee’s Garden.
- Territorial Seed Company — The family-owned Oregon seed farm, from 1979, offering certified-organic, untreated seed trial-grown near Cottage Grove.
- High Mowing Organic Seeds — The independent Vermont seed house, from 1996, offering one-hundred-per-cent certified-organic, Non-GMO Project Verified seed.
- Adaptive Seeds — The Oregon seed farm, from 2009, offering only public-domain, open-pollinated, certified-organic seed grown mostly on its own land.
- Uprising Seeds — The small family seed farm near Bellingham, Washington, offering certified-organic, one-hundred-per-cent open-pollinated seed.
- Wood Prairie Family Farm — The Maine family farm, from 1976, known for certified-organic seed potatoes and organic garden seed from Bridgewater.
- Turtle Tree Seed — The biodynamic, Demeter-certified seed initiative of Camphill Village U.S.A., a nonprofit community in Copake, New York.
- Renee’s Garden — The California seed house founded by Renee Shepherd, now part of the Diamond family of businesses alongside West Coast Seeds.
Breeders and preservers
Row 7, Wild Boar Farms, Experimental Farm Network, Redwood Seeds, Fruition, Sand Hill and Kitazawa.
- Row 7 Seed Company — The New York seed house, from 2018, that breeds vegetables for flavor through a chef-and-plant-breeder collaboration.
- Wild Boar Farms — The California tomato-breeding farm of Brad Gates, known for exotic, colourful, striped and intensely-flavoured new tomato varieties.
- Experimental Farm Network — The Philadelphia nonprofit, from 2013, running participatory, open-source plant breeding for climate adaptation.
- Redwood Seeds — The northern-California certified-organic seed farm, from 2009, growing open-pollinated seed as an Open Source Seed Initiative member.
- Fruition Seeds — The Finger Lakes organic seed nonprofit breeding bioregional Northeast varieties and giving away much of its seed and teaching.
- Sand Hill Preservation Center — The Iowa family gene bank, from 1988, preserving thousands of heirloom seed varieties and heritage poultry breeds.
- Kitazawa Seed Company — The Asian-vegetable seed house founded in California in 1917, now a brand of True Leaf Market, with a resilient heritage.
At a glance: who owns the name and where it is made
Taken from each guide’s fact panel, as of October 2026. Ownership and production change; follow the link for sources and detail.
| Brand | Founded | Owner | Based |
|---|---|---|---|
| Adaptive Seeds | 2009 | See guide | See guide |
| Baker Creek | 1998 (Missouri) | Gettle family | See guide |
| Baumaux | 1943 (Nancy) | See guide | See guide |
| Botanical Interests | See guide | Epic Gardening | Colorado |
| Burpee | 1876 (Philadelphia) | George Ball, Inc. | Warminster, PA |
| Experimental Farm Network | 2013 (Philadelphia) | See guide | See guide |
| Fedco Seeds | 1978 (Maine) | See guide | See guide |
| Ferry-Morse | 1856 | Central Garden & Pet | Norton, MA |
| Franchi Sementi | See guide | See guide | See guide |
| Fruition Seeds | See guide | Growing & gifting | Finger Lakes, NY |
| High Mowing Organic Seeds | 1996 | See guide | See guide |
| Hudson Valley Seed Co | 2008 (New York) | Greene & Muller | See guide |
| Johnny’s Selected Seeds | 2012 (employee-owned) | 100% by employees | Maine |
| Kings Seeds | 1888 | Independent | See guide |
| Kitazawa Seed Company | 1917 (San Jose, CA) | See guide | See guide |
| Native Seeds/SEARCH | 1983 (Arizona) | Indigenous stewardship | See guide |
| Redwood Seeds | 2009 | See guide | See guide |
| Renee’s Garden | See guide | See guide | See guide |
| Row 7 Seed Company | 2018 | Chef + breeder | See guide |
| Sand Hill Preservation Center | 1988 (family) | See guide | See guide |
| Sativa Rheinau | AG 2005 (coop 1992) | See guide | See guide |
| Seed Savers Exchange | 1975 (Iowa) | Member-supported | See guide |
| Snake River Seed Cooperative | See guide | Growers + employees | See guide |
| Southern Exposure Seed Exchange | 1982 (Virginia) | Acorn Community | See guide |
| Sow True Seed | 2009 (Asheville, NC) | 100% by employees | See guide |
| Territorial Seed Company | 1979 (family-owned) | See guide | See guide |
| Thompson & Morgan | See guide | BVG Group | See guide |
| Truelove Seeds | c.2017 (Philadelphia) | Grower revenue-share | See guide |
| Turtle Tree Seed | See guide | See guide | See guide |
| Uprising Seeds | See guide | See guide | See guide |
| West Coast Seeds | 1983 | Diamond family | See guide |
| Wild Boar Farms | See guide | See guide | See guide |
| Wild Garden Seed | 1994 (Oregon) | Frank & Karen Morton | See guide |
| William Dam Seeds | 1947 | Dam family | See guide |
| Wood Prairie Family Farm | 1976 (family farm) | See guide | See guide |
Frequently asked questions
Is Johnny’s Selected Seeds employee-owned?
Yes; our guide says it has been one hundred per cent employee-owned since 2012.
Who owns Burpee?
George Ball, Inc., since 1991, according to our guide.
See also our garden tool and planter brand guidelines.
Part of our Home & Kitchen brand guidelines. See also all collections.