North Freeze Dry

Founded in 1899, American Crystal Sugar Company is a world-class agricultural cooperative that specializes in the production of sugar. It is owned by more than 2,500 shareholders who raise over 400,000 acres of sugar beet in the Red River Valley of Minnesota and northern Dakota. The company features products under the Sidney Sugars brand. It serves the retail and industrial markets. American Crystal Sugar Company products include sugar beet pulp, betaine and molasses. It maintains sugar beet processing plants in Minnesota and North Dakota. The company manages Midwest Agri-Commodities, which markets nearly 1 million tons of agricultural products every year in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. It employs a work force of approximately 250 people.

Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative is a diversified agricultural organization based in Wahpeton, N.D. The members of MDFC produce sugar beets on farms in an eight-county area in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The company is a member-owner of two marketing cooperatives: United Sugars Corporation of Minneapolis and Midwest Agri-commodities of San Francisco. It markets its sugar through USC and markets co-products, including beet molasses and beet pulp pellets, through MAC. The Minn-Dak Farmer Cooperative sugar beet factory in Wahpeton, N.D., was dedicated in September 1974 but its roots go back to the 1930s, when area farmers first started trying to locate a factory there. In August 1970 286 shareholders formed the Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative and their dream became reality in 1972 when the first signup for acreage took place.