() is one of
North America 's largest packaged foods companies. ConAgra's products are available in
Supermarket s, as well as
Restaurant s and
Food Service establishments. Its headquarters are located in
Omaha ,
Nebraska .
was founded in 1919 by
Alva Kinney , who brought together four grain mills as '''Nebraska Consolidated Mills'''. In 1940, it began producing
Flour at its own mill, and in 1942 ventured into the livestock feed business. Consolidated Mills funded the establishment of
Duncan Hines in 1951 as a way to market more flour by selling cake mixes. This venture was very successful, in fact now they are the third largest flour miller, but did not lead Consolidated to consider other food ventures. Instead, they sold their assets in Duncan Hines to
Procter & Gamble in 1956. As American households purchased more and more prepared and instant foods in the 1950s and 1960s, Consolidated chose not to expand into the businesses that used their flour, instead turning in the opposite direction and focusing more on raw foods like poultry and expanding its livestock feed business.
In 1971, Consolidated Mills changed its name to , a combination of con for
Consolidated and
Agra meaning ''from the earth'' in Latin. The 1970s brought the company to the brink of ruin as it lost money expanding into the fertilizer, catfish, and pet product industries and as commodity speculation wiped out ConAgra's margins on raw foods. In 1974,
Charles M. Harper ("Mike" Harper), an experienced food industry executive, took over the firm and brought it back from the brink of bankruptcy. Nonetheless, ConAgra's business model left it at the mercy of volatile commodity prices. In response, the company set off on a two-decade-long buying spree, purchasing over one hundred prepared food brands starting with its 1980 purchase of
Banquet Foods . It moved heavily into the frozen food business and the packaged meat industry, and then picked up a selection of other brands from firms like
RJR Nabisco and
Beatrice Foods among others, as the
Leveraged Buyout s of the 1980s resulted in the divestiture or breakup of many major American consumer product firms. In 1993 alone it purchased
$500 Million in smaller firms, and in 1998 it purchased another
$480 Million in brands from
Nabisco .
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Conagra Foods Inc 2007 Annual Report
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2007
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See Also: List of ConAgra brands
ConAgra produces a wide array of food products, including cooking oil,
Frozen Dinners ,
Hot Cocoa ,
Hot Dog s,
Peanut Butter and many others. Some of ConAgra's major brands include
ConAgra has been criticized for its lack of response to global warming. A 2006 report by
CERES , a non-profit organization that works to address global climate change and other sustainability issues, titled "Corporate Governance and Climate Change: Making the Connection," measures how 100 leading global companies are responding to global warming. Companies in the report were evaluated on a 0 to 100 scale. ConAgra scored a total of 4 points, the lowest of any of the food companies rated.http://www.ceres.org/pub/docs/Ceres_corp_gov_and_climate_change_0306.pdf
In 2003-2004, ConAgra participated in a Minnesota Pollution Control Agency voluntary investigation and clean-up program. Through the program, the company cleaned up a property previously used for lithium ore processing and constructed a new office/warehouse building.
http://www.pca.state.mn.us/cleanup/vicstories.html#conagra
In May 2003, ConAgra and its subsidiary Gilroy Foods agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle charges of hiring discrimination brought by the
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The charges involved a July 1999
Teamsters strike at a plant in King City, then owned by Basic Vegetable Products LP but later purchased by ConAgra. In August 2001, the company successfully negotiated with the union to end the two-year strike with a new contract that would recall workers based on seniority. However, the recall process excluded workers who were on leave at the time of the purchase including those out due to work injury or pregnancy. Others were denied jobs due to a history of previous injury or illness, despite their having no restrictions on returning to work. According to the EEOC, most of the 39 workers who were excluded from the recall process had been working at the plant for 10 to 20 years and were primarily
Hispanic and female.
http://www.agobservatory.org/agribusiness_records.cfm?nID=67
In 2001, the
U.S. Department Of Agriculture halted operations at two ConAgra plants because of health violations. The company was threatened with shutdowns at least a half dozen more times. The ConAgra facility in
Longmont , Colorado, had the highest rate of salmonella among all the turkey processors tested by the Department during 2001. Nearly half of the turkeys processed at ConAgra’s Longmont, Colorado, facility were contaminated with harmful Salmonella bacteria, compared with a rate of 13 percent for the industry at large.http://www.cspinet.org/new/foodsafety02_14_02.html
In 2002, ConAgra, together with other major food and beverage companies including
PepsiCo ,
General Mills ],
Kellogg ,
Sara Lee , and
H.J. Heinz Co. , spent heavily to defeat
Oregon 's measure 27, which would have required food companies to label products that contain genetically modified ingredients.http://www.cropchoice.com/leadstrye184.html?recid=1013 According to the Oregon Secretary of State, ConAgra contributed $71,000 to the campaign to defeat the ballot initiative.http://www.coopamerica.org/programs/rs/profile.cfm?id=206
In 1997 ConAgra pled guilty to federal criminal charges that its Peavey Grain unit illegally sprayed water on stored
Grain to increase its weight and value and also bribed Federal inspectors. The company agreed to pay $8.3 million to resolve the charges, which included a $4.4 million criminal fine, $3.45 million as compensation for illegal profits and $450,000 to reimburse the
U.S. Department Of Agriculture for storage and investigation expenses. ConAgra had also paid $2 million to settle a related civil case filed by a group of Indiana farmers. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE0DC1F38F933A15750C0A961958260
Multinational Monitor , a corporate watchdog organization, named ConAgra one of the 'Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s'.http://multinationalmonitor.org/mm1999/99july-aug/crime1.html
-contaminated jar of
Peter Pan Peanut Butter with "2111" product code.]]
ConAgra recalled 19 million pounds of
Ground Beef in July of 2002 with bacterial contamination. It was the third-largest recall up to that time. That meat was linked to the illnesses of 19 people in six Western and Midwestern states.
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In February of 2007, ConAgra recalled jars of
Peter Pan and
Great Value Peanut Butter with the product code "2111" on the lid; since Peter Pan (but not Great Value) is only made at one plant, this turned out to include all Peter Pan jars sold in the U.S. since May 2006. These jars were linked to a
Salmonella outbreak, that, as of February 15, 2007, has caused illness in 288 people in 39 states.
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