White Wave Foods

White Wave Foods
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Dean Foods Company

Type	Public (NYSE: DF)
Founded	1925
Headquarters	Dallas, Texas
Key people	Gregg L. Engles, CEO & Chairman of the Board Jack F. Callahan Jr., Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Joseph Scalzo, President/Chief Executive Officer of Whitewave Foods Michael H. Keown, President of Indulgent Brands - Whitewave Foods Harrald Kroeker, President of Direct Store Delivery Group
Industry	Agribusiness
Products	Milk, Dairy Products
Revenue	USD $11.8 Billion (2007)¹
Operating income	USD $585 Million (2007)²
Net income	USD $131 Million (2007)³
Employees	25,585 (November 13, 2008)
Website	www.deanfoods.com

The Dean Foods Company (NYSE: DF) is an American food and beverage company. In 1925, founder Samuel E. Dean bought the Pecatonica Marketing Company, an evaporated milk processing facility located in northwestern Illinois and named it the Dean Evaporated Milk Company in 1927. ⁴

That same year Dean began to expand the company by purchasing local Illinois dairy plants. The company’s growth through acquisitions continued until December 21, 2001 when it was acquired by Dallas based Suiza Foods Corporation, a larger acquisition dairy company. After the acquisition, Suiza changed its ticker symbol on the New York Stock Exchange from “SZA” to “DF” and moved all operations to Dallas, Texas. The "new" Dean Foods Company was born.

The company has two operating divisions: Dean Dairy Group and WhiteWave Foods.⁵ It has plants and distributors in the United States and the United Kingdom.

On March 29, 2006, Dean Foods was added to the Standard and Poor’s 500 Index.

1 History
- 1.1 Suiza Foods
2 Brands
3 Development
4 Controversial Issues
5 Headquarters and industry
6 See also
7 Notes
8 External links

History

What is now Dean Foods the most recognized milk producer was first founded by Samuel E. Dean. In 1925 the founder of the milk processor Dean Foods set up for business creating what is now the leading milk and dairy producer in the United States. Dean now has farms and processing plants across the country. It all started when Sam Dean, Sr. was selling evaporated milk for a company in Chicago and then decided to begin his own company. Dean had been working in the milk industry so it is understandable that he set out as an entrepreneur in the dairy industry. Samuel E. Dean set the first location in the northwest region of Illinois. When he founded the Dean Evaporated Milk Company in 1925, it consisted of one plant in Pecatonica, Illinois.⁶ The Dean Foods Company has grown drastically from when it first began, it is currently the industry leaders in dairy products. Dean Food products are supplied nation wide in groceries and food marts. Through thoughtful acquisitions and careful financial management, Dean Foods Company has grown from a small regional dairy into a diversified food company.⁷Dean Foods also sells products such as fluid milk, frozen vegetables, and has even become part of the pickle processor industry in the United States. Dean's product line includes ice cream, frozen desserts, canned vegetables, relishes, salad dressings, dips, and non-dairy creamers.⁸ The diversity of products offered by Dean Foods places them as the the king of milk by taking over other dairies' thrones. The leading US producer of fluid milk and dairy products.

Suiza Foods

Suiza began in 1995 when Gregg L. Engles, owner of commercial ice cream company Reddy Ice merged Reddy with Suiza Dairy which Engles had acquired in 1993. The highly fragmented dairy industry motivated Engles to acquire dairy companies. After the merger of Reddy and the dairy acquisitions, the company became Suiza Foods Corporation, based in Dallas, Texas.

Brands

They are the largest producer of soy milk in the United States, owning a second soy milk brand as well (Sun Soy). Their brands also include organic and non-dairy milks such as Horizon Organic.

Their subsidiary White Wave Foods is the distributor of Silk soy milk, Horizon Organic dairy products, International Delight creamer, some Land O'Lakes dairy products, Hershey's milk products, and Rachel's yogurt (both in the UK and the US). The company's TofuTown brand and its various tofu products were acquired by the Hain Celestial Group in June 2007.

In addition, Dean Foods owns many other brands. Dairy products with any of the following brand names are owned by Dean: Adohr Farms, AltaDena, Barbe's, Barber's, Berkeley Farms, Borden, Broughton Foods Company, Brown's Dairy, Celta, Country Delite, Country Fresh, Creamland, Dairy Ease, Dairy Fresh, Dean Foods Ultra, Gandy's, Garelick Farms, Hygeia, Ideal Dairy, Jilbert's Dairy, Lehigh Valley Dairies, Liberty Dairy (in Evart, Michigan, and available mainly at Meijer Stores), Louis Trauth, Mayfield Dairy, McArthur Dairy, Meadow Brook, Meadow Gold, Model Dairy, Oak Farms, PET Evaporated Milk, Price's, Purity, Reiter, Robinson Dairy, Schenkel's, Schepps, Shenandoah's Pride, Swiss Farms, T.G. Lee, Tuscan Dairy Farms, and Verifine. It licenses the Land O'Lakes brand, selling creamers and fluid dairy products under the name.⁹ Many brands of pickles are produced by Dean, including 80% of store-brand pickles. Dean also owns miscellaneous brands of sauces, olives, instant breakfasts, and other edibles.

Development

Dean Foods reached internet phenomenon status on August 9th, 2006, when The New York Times published an article relating to users of YTMND.com leaving humorous reviews on a gallon of "Tuscan Whole Milk" available on Amazon.com. Tuscan is a brand under the Dean Foods corporation.

In August, 2006, Dean Foods acquired Jilbert's Dairy, a 70 year old family run dairy business near Marquette, Michigan in the Upper peninsula.¹⁰

In December 2007, Dean Foods bought the Wells Dairy milk plant in Le Mars, Iowa. ¹¹

Controversial Issues

This organic private labeled company along with Aurora Dairy have been part of many controversies. The facilities in Colorado and Texas milking approximately 20,000 cows have been investigated by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) due to complaints filed by Cornucopia who seek economic justice for the family-scale farming community. ¹²

In 2001, the company was sued by seven former employers. Workers from California declared the company did not protect them against workplace harassment by fellow co-workers. Such harassment activity included swastikas and KKK graffiti along with hung nooses and Confederate flags. According to the plant superintendent the nooses were “an old southern custom”; incidents persisted from 1993 to 2000. The case was settled in May 2003 when plaintiffs agreed to $3.3million. ¹³

In 2003, along with Horizon Organic Holding Corp., Dean Foods was sued by two shareholders. They claim that Dean Foods paid to little to attain the company for an agreement. Not only that but they also assert the company did not take care of the legal obligations having to do with the horizon organic shareholders. According to the executives of the company, the lawsuits were fault settling the claim with the shareholders in May 2007. ¹⁴

In May 12, 2008 Cornucopia filed another complaint with the USDA declaring that Deans Foods restrained an abundant amount of their cows to an unhygienic feed yard in Snelling, California; federal organic regulations require such animals to be obtained in an organic environment containing access to pasture and fresh grass. Allegations from the federal agency were dismissed. ¹⁵

Headquarters and industry

The original headquarters was located in Illinois but was moved to its current location in Dallas, Texas¹⁶ with its merger with Suiza Foods.

Dean Foods and Suiza grew through well-planned acquisitions to help gather the fragmented dairy industry, becoming the largest dairy product producers in the United States and the United Kingdom. Their union created the largest dairy producer in the United States with annual earnings of more than three billion dollars. Dean Foods dairy group segment in the year of 2007 was its largest, with approximately 88% of the company’s consolidated net sales in that year. The Dairy Groups manufactures, markets and distributes a wide variety of branded dairy and dairy based products, including creamers, ice cream, cultured dairy products and juices to retailers, distributors, food outlets and not to mention educational and governmental places across the United States that help the company’s growth in sales

Today, Dean Foods Company has 100 facilities located in 35 states and the United Kingdom. The company’s current headquarters is located in Dallas, Texas, United States. By buying other milk and food facilities all over the U.S. and the U.K, Dean Foods in now one of the world's leading milk and beverage producer, delivering food goods to many well-known local and regional brands; two of those brands being Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club, Dean Foods largest customers.

The Dean Foods Corporation owns other division companies across the United States that could be found in the listed located states of: Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North & South Carolina, North & South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Notes

External links

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