Babaamaajimowinan (Telling of news in different places)
One hundred years later, what started as the Minnesota Cooperative Creameries Association has grown to a $14 billion-a-year business in dairy, animal feed and seed-and-crop products. Now headquartered in Arden Hills, Land O'Lakes sits at No. 219 on the Fortune 500, with nearly 2,500 dairy and ag producers and nearly 1,000 smaller co-ops and independent retailers as members, and a worldwide customer base.
"That cooperative model is our very foundation, the fact that we are owned by our farmer members, by our local retail network, I think it's so powerful," Land O'Lakes president and CEO Beth Ford said in an interview last week on the Arden Hills campus. Its low brick buildings were mostly empty of people, with most of the headquarters workforce working from home.
To kick off the celebration of the company's centennial, Ford is holding an employee town hall on Wednesday, and dedicating a new bronze sculpture of a farmer on the headquarters campus. That aligns with the company's recent moves to refocus its public image on its farmer members; last year, Land O'Lakes quietly removed the image of a Native American woman that graced its dairy products for decades, and elevated the term "Farmer-Owned" on its packaging.
https://www.startribune.com/land-olakes-celebrates-100-years-in-business/600083804/
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