Vilmorin-Andrieux is a French seed producer. The company has a long history in France, where it was family-controlled for almost two centuries, and was a world leader in breeding and producing plants and seeds. Today it specialises in seed production, and the largest plant breeding and seed company in the European Union.

Vilmorin was founded as a plant and seed boutique in 1743 by seed expert Claude Geoffroy and her husband Pierre Andrieux, the chief seed supplier and botanist to King Louis XV. The store was located on the quai de la Mégisserie, a street in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The company grew in leaps and bounds and purchased a former hunting lodge of Louis XIV of France, which became known for its gardens and arboretum, and the Vilmorin company was headquartered in Verrières-le-Buisson, where it was led by a succession of Vilmorin heirs.

The company produced the first seed catalogue for farmers and academics. In 1856, Louis de Vilmorin published “Note on the Creation of a New Race of Beetroot and Considerations on Heredity in Plants”, establishing the theoretical groundwork for the modern seed-breeding industry. The company’s leaders continued to publish numerous botanical academic articles throughout the company’s early history.

The craze for cannas began in the 1850’s, and the company was active in the breeding and sale of cannas, until in 1972 the company was sold, and following a restructuring Vilmorin focused on vegetable seeds and trees for professionals (growers, seed producers, and nurseries) and is no longer active in breeding canna..