Livestock farmers depend on grass. It's their most basic raw material. But when the stock seed is poor, the grass is poor. That's what drove a group of Danish seed farmers to set up a cooperative to replace poor imported grass seed with their own good-quality Danish seed. Like all farmers, they wanted to be self-sufficient. After more than a century, our founding fathers' belief that 'good seeds ensure a good harvest' still dominates the way we think at DLF.

Denmark is a paradise for seed growers. As our DLF AmbA cooperative soon discovered, Danish soil and climate are ideal for growing grass seed – and Danish consumers were eager for good-quality Danish seed. By working with the Danish consumer cooperative, FDB, we distributed our seeds to every town and village in the land. We also invested wisely in multiplication know-how, seed processing, storage and property. By the time of our 50th anniversary, we'd increased seed production twelve-fold.

In 1988 we acquired the Danish grass seed businesses called Dansk Frøhandel Trifolium Silo og SN-Frø. Our new company, DLF-TRIFOLIUM A/S, at last had the size and scale to turn a successful seed business into one that would give Danish grass growers exactly what they need. In the years that followed, we consolidated our position by acquiring several more local seed businesses and Danish Plantbreeding, one of the world's largest clover and grass seed plant research centres and the engine for plant breeding within Denmark. By drawing all aspects of the supply chain together – research, production, and sales – we created a Danish seed company that could compete efficiently in the international market.

In a hungry, sports-mad world, everyone wants better seeds for forage and for turf. To give European grass users the best of Danish seed, we embarked on a series of acquisitions and collaborations that took us into new markets in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the Czech Republic. We even set up an office in China.

We believe that all European grass users should be able to plant top-quality seed. To give us new production facilities and new distribution channels within the EU and beyond, we acquired two Dutch companies, Cebeco Seeds Group and Advanta (merged into Innoseeds). In the process our position in North America was significantly strengthened.

After so many acquisitions our challenge was to streamline the business and achieve efficiencies throughout the supply chain. So we set out to work as a single company under the DLF-TRIFOLIUM A/S banner, as One Company. Along the way we improved everything, from research, seed production, distribution, sales and marketing all the way to the final consumer. We also strengthened our position in East and Central Europe, China and New Zealand.

In 2013 we entered the North American market through the acquisition of Pickseed, a Canadian based seed company. It gave us access to research and development and production and distribution channels in Canada as well as opportunities the within the US market. That same year, we achieved a rare honor. We became one of just 30 Danish companies named in the Danish Export Canon for their extraordinary contribution to export sales.