Phytelligence Welcomes New Global Vice President of Sales for Berries

Berry expert Lee Cobb joins Seattle-based startup to lead company’s berry sales

Berry expert Lee Cobb joins Seattle-based startup to lead company's berry sales (Photo: Business Wire)

SEATTLE--()--Phytelligence, a leading agricultural biotechnology company that is revolutionizing the way food crops are grown, today announced the addition of Lee Cobb to its team as global vice president of sales for its berry segment. Cobb will pioneer expansion of the company’s berry sector and lead the pursuit of new customers eager to propagate berry plants and develop new varieties.

In his new role, Cobb will work alongside the company’s sales team to strengthen existing relationships with berry growers and educate new customers on the benefits of tissue culture practices and planting genetically confirmed, true-to-type and disease-free berry plants.

“The combination of Lee’s sales and business development background with his experience as a berry farmer is impressive and aligns well with our objective to grow our berry segment,” said Ken Hunt, CEO of Phytelligence. “His deep knowledge of the blueberry industry and the challenges growers face in this space will be instrumental to further support our growers, as well as new customers.”

Cobb has widespread industry experience both farming and leading sales and strategy development in the berry market. Mostly recently, Cobb served as the blueberry commodity manager at BlazerWilkinson LP (BW), where he led BW’s blueberry business to $5 million in less than two years under the well-known "FOXY" label. Prior to BW’s 2016 acquisition of Andrew Smith Co.’s (ASCO) berry business, formerly Colorful Harvest LLC, Cobb was hired to help the company enter the blueberry sector in 2012; and a year later, he was promoted to ASCO’s vice president of business development of blueberries. In this role, Cobb was forefront in the successful launch of the company’s blueberry segment.

Cobb was also paramount in blueberry cultivation at Bee Branch Farms Inc. (BBF) and ultimately the sale of the company in 2012. Cobb held several leadership roles during his time at BBF and also co-wrote an industry white paper, which secured an investment partner and doubled the company’s farm acreage within two years.

“I look forward to joining Phytelligence and building its capacity to service berry segment growers,” said Cobb. “I’m eager to expand my knowledge of tissue culture practices and further the company’s commitment to delivering high-quality crops across all sectors.”

About Phytelligence

Phytelligence is an agricultural biotechnology company that is revolutionizing the way food crops are grown. Utilizing its proprietary growing techniques to provide superior quality crops, Phytelligence enables higher grower profit by increasing speed to harvest and reducing input costs. Phytelligence provides additional value to food crop growers and plant breeders through the application of advanced genetics enabling guaranteed delivery of accurate plants, disease screening, plant repository services, securing of intellectual property, and the ability to co-develop new varieties of food crops. The company has a growing pipeline of biological and compound solutions aimed at improving returns throughout the food crop value chain. Phytelligence was founded by Dr. Amit Dhingra in 2012 out of his Horticulture Genomics and Biotechnology Research laboratory at Washington State University and is headquartered in Seattle with facilities in Pullman, Wash. and Portland, Ore. Learn more at www.phytelligence.com.

Contacts

PR for Phytelligence
Janae Frisch and AnnMarie Henriksson, 206-282-4923 ext. 125
phytelligence@communiquepr.com

Contacts

PR for Phytelligence
Janae Frisch and AnnMarie Henriksson, 206-282-4923 ext. 125
phytelligence@communiquepr.com