Commercial and societal impact

We have a proven track-record over a 110-year history of economic and societal impact

Our successes reach every UK household.

For example the iconic John Innes compost was our contribution to the British garden. Traditional British pub lunches would not be the same without our Maris Piper potatoes (for chips) and Maris Otter barley (for beer).

We continue to create some of the most innovative products on the market (such as Beneforté Broccoli and Purple Tomatoes) and generate multi-million pound spin-out companies, including Leaf Expression Systems.

We also have a substantial impact globally, for example we discovered the wheat dwarfing gene which sits behind the ‘green revolution‘ and provided the underpinning science for the production of many modern antibiotics.

In 2022, we commissioned an independent analysis of our impact by Brookdale Consulting, which shows that the John Innes Centre returns £15.22 to the UK economy for every £1 invested.