Bunge Limited grinds it out. The company is a leading global soy and other oilseed processor, a leading South American fertilizer maker and provider, and, through subsidiary Bunge North America, a major US food and food ingredient processor. Its joint venture with DuPont (Solae), of which Bunge owns 28%, makes soy-based food ingredients. Bunge also processes canola seed, sunflower seed, wheat, and corn. Its fertilizer operations take place mainly through its interest in Brazil-based Fosfertil. The operation involves all stages of production, from the mining of phosphate-based raw materials to the selling of blended fertilizers.

C & D Fruit and Vegetable Company handles all southern vegetables. The company also markets Mexican produce in season. One of the finest grower/shipper operators in the Southeast, C & D operates field offices in major growing areas. We also maintain an office in Nogales to meet customer requirements from Mexico. From the southern tip of Florida to the eastern shore of Virginia, over 25 locations grow, pack and ship the freshest fruits and vegetables to our customers throughout the United States and Canada.For three decades the O'Brien family of C & D Fruit & Vegetable Company has taken the headaches out of produce buying. Known for consistent product quality and its tradition of dependability and service, C & D endures as a trusted leader in the perishables business.

actus Feeders, headquartered in Amarillo, Texas, has 10 large-scale cattle feedyards across the Texas High Plains & southwest Kansas. Since its founding in 1975, Cactus Feeders has grown into a $750 million company that employs about 500 people. Cactus Feeders is the world's largest cattle feeding operation. We buy cattle every day, so you can get more money for your cattle with Cactus Feeders. Employees own 40 percent of Cactus Feeders through our Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). Employee ownership means that each employee has a personal stake in the performance of the cattle and the success of Cactus Feeders. For our cattle feeding customers, this translates into a level of care and feeding for their cattle that only ownership can provide.

Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? At Cal-Maine Foods, it's the egg, and the company's 27 million laying hens can attest to that. It is one of the largest fresh shell egg producers in the US. Cal-Maine sells its eggs to US food retailers. It produces value-added specialty eggs (organic, Omega-3 enhanced, free range) that it sells under the Egg-Land's Best and Farmhouse labels. The company controls all aspects of the business, from hatching chicks, making feed, housing hens, and distributing eggs. Its operations include two breeding facilities, two hatcheries, five distribution centers, 19 feed mills, 37 shell-egg production operations, 26 pullet-growing facilities, and 31 processing and packing sites.

Turning a delicious but odd-shaped fruit into a household favorite wasn’t in the plan when a group of grower-hobbyists banded together in 1924 to form the California Avocado Growers Exchange. And two more years would pass before Rudolph Hass of La Habra, California, would plant the state’s first Hass avocado tree.At the time, avocado growers had no quality standards, no distribution channels, and only one facility, a packinghouse in Vernon, California. During that first year, the Growers Exchange packed 18,000 pounds of avocados from that packinghouse and, in doing so, launched an industry.Though the Vernon packinghouse has long since closed, the company that sprang from that Growers’ Exchange - now known as Calavo Growers, Inc. - is still going strong some 81 years later. In 2005, this publicly traded, diversified, global agribusiness packed approximately 35 percent of the California avocado crop, nearly double the market share of its closest competitor. Three modern packinghouses - strategically located in Santa Paula and Temecula, California, and Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico - teem with productivity and thrive on volume, packing approximately 200 million pounds per year. The company is now headquartered in Santa Paula, California and employs more than 500 people.

California’s first commercial cotton sprouted in 1862 in what would later become Kern County (where Calcot is headquartered today), but the San Joaquin Valley didn’t earn its reputation as a producer of “white gold” until the next century, after World War I, when the federal government wanted extra long staple cotton for military applications. The homegrown group began as the San Joaquin Cotton Growers in Delano in 1927 and has been headquartered in Bakersfield since 1931. The co-op grew out of a Delano grower’s frustration over the middlemen in the cotton industry.In 1926, Capt. Frank E. Green had a lunch meeting in a Delano hotel, where he pitched the idea of a growers’ cooperative to his peers. The grape and cotton farmer had been mulling the idea since 1922, when the Capper-Volstead Act passed, allowing farmers to form cooperative groups without violating anti-trust laws.

Since 1924, Ocean Mist Farms has pioneered the commercial planting and shipping of Artichokes in Castroville (a town that has become synonymous with the thorny, odd-looking little vegetable), and today it is recognized as the largest Artichoke operation in the United States. Through the Depression, labor strikes, wars, floods and freezes, Ocean Mist Farms' commitment to high quality and superior service has never wavered. Commitment to its customers has always dictated a continuous emphasis on quality assurance from soil to consumer.In 1924, Daniel Pieri, Amerigo and Angelo Del Chiaro, Alfred Tottino and James Bellone launched the California Artichoke & Vegetable Growers Corporation, renamed Ocean Mist Farms in January of 1995. Pieri had been in the produce business in San Francisco since 1908 and had considerable experience in growing Artichokes and Brussels Sprouts in the San Gregorio and Half Moon Bay areas, having earlier formed the San Francisco Artichoke Association and the Santa Cruz Vegetable Company.

No, it's not the redwoods that California Giant produces -- it's strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries. In order to supply its customers with berries throughout the entire year, the company has growing operations in California, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Florida, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. California Giant's berries are distributed to customers in the retail grocery, foodservice, and restaurant industries around the world. It also has extensive research and breeding operations, testing more than 15,000 new berry varieties every year. California Giant was founded in the 1970s by president Bill Moncovich and his partners.

California Vegetable Specialties is a specialty farming company dedicated to the consistent production of highest-quality California Endive. With growing fields throughout Northern California, the company is headquartered in the town of Rio Vista, in the historically rich agricultural region of the Sacramento River Delta. We produce white and red endive, as well as several specialty products for chefs, Endigia and Pissenlit.Richard Collins, a Sacramento native and graduate of the Agricultural and Managerial Economics program at the University of California, Davis, founded the company in 1983 as Rebel Farms. He chose the name in response to the many naysayers who deemed him foolish for trying to grow endive for the U.S. market. Today, California Vegetable Specialties is the only U.S. producer of endive, and dominates the market west of the Mississippi, selling nearly 4 million pounds of endive each year. Since 1987, California Vegetable Specialties has been a part of the French-based Darome Group of International Companies. The Darome Group operates in three business sectors: specialized agricultural production, food processing, and trade. Darome began working with CVS in 1985, and the "technology transfer" of endive production methods from Europe to California has been instrumental in the success of the California Endive.

Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. Founded in 1865, our privately held company employs 138,000 people in 67 countries. Cargill may be private, but it's highly visible. The agribusiness giant, the US's largest private corporation, has operations in 70 countries. It has five main business segments -- Agriculture Services (customized farm services and products); Food Ingredients and Applications (food and beverage ingredients, and meat and poultry products); Industrial, Origination and Processing (commodity origination, processing, marketing and distribution); and Risk Management and Financial (risk management and financial solutions); and Industrial (salt, steel, and fertilizer). Cargill's customers include food, beverage, industrial, pharmaceutical, and personal care product makers, as well as farmers and foodservice providers.

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