How the Recent Deal with Envu and FMC Will Bring More Crop Protection Solutions to Greenhouse Growers

Mark Schneid

FMC Corporation and Envu recently announced the successful completion of the sale of FMC’s Global Specialty Solutions (GSS) business to Envu. The companies signed a definitive acquisition agreement on July 11, 2024.

Greenhouse Grower Editor Brian Sparks recently caught up with Mark Schneid, Head of Commercial Operations North America at Envu, to learn about how the acquisition benefits both Envu and its grower customers.

Brian Sparks: Why did Envu make the decision to purchase FMC’s Global Specialty Solutions (GSS) business?

Mark Schneid: When we were divested from Bayer, we set out to create a standalone company fully dedicated to environmental science markets. Everything we do begins with our customers, their needs, and their pain points. As a company solely devoted to the environmental science space, we can be a focused leader to make decisions that are in the best interest of our customers and offer them solutions for their problems. With FMC, we saw a great opportunity to supplement the businesses we’re already serving and bring outstanding new solutions. This also gives us more bandwidth to help growers and deal with what’s most important to them.

Sparks: How do you see this move resulting in the expansion of the products and solutions that Envu can offer to the floriculture market?

Schneid: I think one of the things that’s great about this is from a solution perspective. We’re bringing in the active ingredient portfolios as well as the expertise we get from the GSS business. It’s going to give us a way to position ourselves to deliver even more targeted solutions for our growers. It also helps us think more about all the different pathways to innovation, which we believe will lead to sustained growth for our customers.

Sparks: How are you approaching innovation through both crop protection products and plant health solutions?

Schneid: We acquired GSS’s traditional chemistry portfolio, and when mixed with the portfolio we already have, we think there’s going to be some really novel solutions we can build out. We also have partnerships where we’re working on a number of biological solutions that could serve this market and others. These partnerships will hopefully make us a more significant player in the market, with more avenues to create new and better solutions for the grower.

Sparks: Can you talk about what effects this acquisition will have on growers and how they can address some of their key challenges?

Schneid: First and foremost, it’s a commitment to our grower customers that we are going to bring more pathways to innovation. We already have a dedicated team of people with many years of experience. On top of that, we are bringing the stewardship to make sure we offer the right advice, tools and training materials, so that the growers can get the best results every time they use one of our solutions.

It’s also about support. At the regulatory and development levels, we are investing more in this space to deliver the next set of solutions that the grower can use, as well as the regulatory support so that we all have freedom to operate in the future. Between our personnel, the investments we’ve made in the ornamentals business, and the future investment we’re making in other areas, we will be an ever-growing partner for the growers.

Sparks: As you talk to the growers that you work with, what are some of the key pain points that they bring up? What are some of their biggest challenges that they’re hoping to address?

Schneid: Growers want solutions that bring greater efficacy that they can use in rotation with other solutions. There are certainly issues that are relatively unique to the grower in the greenhouse market, such as reentry periods. We want to bring solutions that fit that combination of efficacy, new tools in rotation, and resistance management. There are also specific pests growers may struggle with, and we want to create the next generation of solutions to help with that. Through our technical support team as well as our field team, we want to be there in the moment to help them [growers] solve the problem when they need the help.

Sparks: Two questions to close. First, what’s next for Envu, and are there similar moves that you might be looking to make? And, from your perspective, what excites you the most about the future of this market?

Schneid: From day one, we have been focused on growth. Not just growing our business, but also our grower customers’ businesses. If we can help the grower be more successful in their business, we’re going to win as a result. One avenue of growth is what we’ve just shown with the acquisition of GSS. We’re also working on external partnerships all over the world, some of which are also going to bring potential solutions in traditional chemistries as well as in biologicals and other areas, depending on what the grower wants.

It’s all about providing options for the growers so they can grow and cultivate healthier plants in a more cost-effective and productive way. I think that’s what excites us the most are the possibilities and how we can take our bandwidth as a relatively new player in this space and bring more solutions to the market than ever before.

We also recently signed a definitive and exclusive agreement to take on five trusted brands in 2025 that growers already use (click here to learn more). These solutions complement what Envu already has and offer different pathways to innovation with our current portfolio, as well as programmable approaches to keeping plants healthy and safe.

When you ask about what personally excites me the most, it’s the chance to see people who have spent their entire career serving ornamental and greenhouse growers get excited about the new avenues we’ve discussed that help create opportunities to serve our customers. That’s when you know you’re on the right path.