Triple Austria
Growing with the demands
Markus Petermaier, the head of our consulting office, has more than doubled KWS’ share of the sugarbeet seed market in Austria in the space of three years. Our high-performance latest-generation varieties helped him achieve that.
Until 2019, we had no influence on multiplication of our own seed in Austria. Markus Petermaier succeeded in changing the system.
Sometimes everything just clicks: The right person occupies the right position at the right time, has the right products and seizes the opportunity. Markus Petermaier is just such a person. In 2014, he changed both his place of residence and his employer for love’s sake and joined KWS in Austria as head of the sugarbeet consulting office.
Four years later, in March 2018, he attended a meeting of beet farmers. Everyone already knew each other: Until 2014, Markus Petermaier worked in the agricultural and energy divisions at a warehouse in Upper Austria. As a KWS consultant, he now told a representative from the sugar industry at the meeting: “We have to change something. We can’t let our new generations of high-performance varieties CONVISO® SMART and CR+ be multiplied under license in the future; that requires KWS’ know-how.”
Video contents
“In 2019, we launched the Triple Austria project in cooperation with the sugar industry and Austrian associations. Up until 2019, seed was multiplied in Austria under license. The company Österreichische Rübensamenzucht Gesellschaft did that for the Austrian beet market. Even back then, we realized that the requirements for sugarbeet seed would change a lot over the next few years.”
Multiplication under license is a relic of the past. “It used to be necessary in order to safeguard the supply of food, and for that you first need seed.” Österreichische Rübensamenzucht Gesellschaft (ÖRZG) – an almost wholly-owned subsidiary of the sugar industry – specialized in multiplying sugarbeet seed under license for the Austrian market. Breeders like KWS therefore gave up their genetic material and could no longer contribute their expertise in the field of multiplication and processing. The system of multiplication under license meant farmers did not have access to the latest-generation varieties.
“However, the demands on varieties have changed significantly due to climatic conditions, the elimination of chemical pesticides, diseases and new resistances,” says Markus Petermaier. Farmers demanded solutions that would continue to secure their yields. The ability to change varieties more quickly is an important aspect in this regard. “We have multiple-stress tolerant varieties the competition doesn’t have. However, these high-performance varieties require our own KWS know-how in all process stages from multiplication to the finished pellet.”
Market share grown from 30 to more than 75 percent
The ÖRZG would have still have been provided with standard varieties – but not our new CR+ generation of varieties and the CONVISO® SMART herbicide tolerance system.
Video contents
“We recognized very early on that CONVISO® SMART and CR+ would be of great importance for beet cultivation in Austria. We rapidly established both systems on the Austrian market with our partners. By the 2022 sowing season, we’ll have a market share of around 50 percent for CONVISO® SMART and over 25 percent for CR+.”
The increases in market share these varieties delivered are apparent from a comparison with multiplication under license: While KWS’ market share used to be around 30 percent, it has now more than doubled. KWS’ three objectives for the Austrian market – hence the name Triple Austria – can be summarized as follows: first, the end of multiplication under license, second, the launch of CONVISO® SMART and third, the establishment of CR+ genetic material.
From a licensing model to contract multiplication
Nevertheless, the ÖRZG and multipliers did not have to fear any loss as a result of the restructuring: “You have to give Austrians credit where it’s due: They have many years of experience in seed multiplication.” KWS continues to provide easy-to-multiply varieties adapted to local conditions to ÖRZG, which then multiplies this seed under contract for other KWS markets outside Austria.
The switchover took three years.
As Markus Petermaier emphasizes, the speed with which that was accomplished was also due in part to colleagues from Italy and the Netherlands: “Our largest seed multiplication station is in Italy. These varieties had already been launched there a year earlier. We showed an Austrian delegation what these new varieties can do. To enable that, Giuseppe Noci and Chiara De Lucchi deliberately left a field cultivated with standard varieties and CR+ by way of comparison and we were able to visit it with the delegation.” And our colleague Marcel Arts conveyed how resistant our new varieties are to the viral disease rhizomania in the traditional New Year's Talk. “Our colleagues did a great job in helping us communicate our topics and sensitize the Austrians at an early stage.”
Support and digital tools
The sharp increase in market share also entailed more work. To be able to handle the heavier load, Markus Petermaier was joined by another employee, Michael Auer, to assist him in direct contact with customers. KWS also rolled out digital tools such as the Beet Seed Service in Austria. Moreover, the partner company Bayer is fully behind CONVISO® SMART “and already has a broad-based consulting and logistics structure in Austria. We wouldn’t have been able to achieve all that without the great commitment of everyone involved,” says Markus Petermaier.
Indeed, Markus Petermaier emphasizes the key role his colleagues have played in the success of Triple Austria – whether those in the Agro Service for Sugarbeet Germany/Austria, in the back office or international colleagues. And he could also depend on the trust of his boss Alexander Coenen. “Without this support, such a project wouldn’t be feasible.”
Markus Petermaier and Michael Auer, together with their colleagues from the Agro Service for Sugarbeet Germany, want to leverage the positive momentum of Triple Austria and forge even closer ties with farmers by staging ten field days in one week with a road tour at the end of August.
Markus Petermaier’s verdict on Triple Austria is positive across the board.
Video contents
“I believe two things were vital to the successful implementation of Triple Austria. First, you have to recognize when changes are necessary, and second, we had very good partners with whom we jointly defined the goals and brought our plans to fruition.”
© KWS SAAT SE & Co. KGaA 2025
