Fall Creek Spain turns 10: From two hectares to the heart of EMEA

This month marks 10 years of Fall Creek Farm & Nursery's operations in Spain.

What began in 2016 as a two-hectare harvest using plug material from the US has grown into the company's principal hub for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA), now serving customers across 52 countries and producing 14 million finished plants annually.

The Spain operation celebrates its 10th anniversary on May 28 with an event at the company's Aznalcázar nursery, bringing together over 250 employees, including more than 30 who have been part of the company since the operation's founding year.

From a watermelon field to a continental hub

Fall Creek acquired its first Spanish farm in summer 2015, 16 hectares of agricultural land in Aznalcázar, Seville, a plot the founding team came to call “the watermelon field.”

The operation conducted its inaugural harvest in 2016 across just two hectares, using plug material from the company’s US nurseries. What followed was a decade of capability-building: propagation, tissue culture, applied research, and breeding facilities were added progressively across Aznalcázar and a purpose-built research farm in Villamanrique.

Today, the company's Spain team operates a tissue culture laboratory, propagation facilities, a full applied research and development program, and the EMEA central office: the infrastructure of a company that came to Andalusia to stay.

Fall Creek: Proving genetics, building an industry

The firm arrived in Spain at a moment when European and North African growers had limited legal access to high-performing blueberry genetics and the clean, certified plant material needed to scale production with confidence.

The Spanish operation changed that. The country's only facility capable of producing disciplined, clean, true-to-type blueberry plants at scale for the EMEA region, the firmSpain gave growers access to world-class genetics on commercial terms that worked for them legally, reliably, and at volume.

Unlike most international companies serving the EMEA market, which operate through Netherlands-based structures with regional markets as satellites, the company built its European presence differently: Spain is the hub. Aznalcázar and Villamanrique are not regional outposts of a northern European headquarters, but the center from which the entire EMEA business is run, a structure that reflects the company’s long-standing commitment to the markets it serves most.

The Spain operation has served as the primary gateway for the Sekoya and Fall Creek Collection licensing platforms into European and North African markets, and as an early-adoption and proving site for new genetics entering the region.

“Building this operation from the ground up, from the first crop in 2016 to where we stand today, has been one of the defining experiences of my career. Spain is not just a nursery. It has become a reference point for how Fall Creek operates globally: in innovation, in plant quality and in our commitment to growers,” said Antonio Álamo, EMEA regional director for the company.

Driving growth across Europe, North Africa, and beyond

The operation’s geographic position in Andalusia and its EU-certified plant health system have made it a uniquely capable export hub, mobilizing plants across the European Union, North Africa and Western Asia. North Africa has been a core market for Fall Creek since the 1990s and represents a significant share of the EMEA business today.

Fall Creek Spain today employs over 250 people across its Aznalcázar and Villamanrique sites, making it one of the primary employers in both municipalities. Of more than 30 Fall Creek family members who joined in the operation’s founding year, many have grown into leadership roles in operations, agronomy, commercial and global functions, a continuity that reflects a decade of investment in the people who built this operation.

*All images courtesy of Fall Creek. 

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