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American Crystal Sugar Company

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American Crystal Sugar Company
Company typeAgricultural Marketing Cooperative
IndustryAgriculture
Founded1899; 125 years ago (1899)
FounderHenry T. Oxnard
Headquarters
Moorhead, Minnesota
,
United States
Area served
Minnesota, North Dakota, & Montana
Key people
Thomas Astrup (President & CEO)
ProductsSugar
ParentUnited Sugars, Midwest Agri-Commodities
Websitewww.crystalsugar.com

American Crystal Sugar Company is an agricultural cooperative specializing in the production of sugar and related agri-products. American Crystal is owned by nearly 2,800 shareholders who raise approximately one-third of the nation's sugarbeet acreage in the Red River valley of Minnesota and North Dakota. As the largest beet sugar producer in the United States, the company utilizes innovative farming practices, low-cost production methods, and sales and marketing leadership to produce and sell about 15 percent of America's sugar. American Crystal operates sugar factories in Crookston, East Grand Forks, and Moorhead, Minnesota; Drayton and Hillsboro, North Dakota. The company's technical services center and corporate headquarters are also located in Moorhead.

Located in Bloomington, Minnesota, United Sugars Corporation markets American Crystal's sugar to retail and industrial customers throughout the nation. Midwest Agri-Commodities Company, based in San Rafael, California, globally markets American Crystal's agri-products such as sugarbeet pulp, molasses, CSB, and betaine.

History

The company was founded as the American Beet Sugar Company by Henry Oxnard in 1899, who combined four separate sugar beet processing plants he had built over the previous decade into a single entity.[1] In 1890, Oxnard had established the Oxnard Beet Sugar Company in Grand Island, Nebraska.[2] The following year he built another plant in Norfolk, Nebraska, the Norfolk Beet Sugar Company, as well as working with his brother Robert to construct the Chino Valley Beet Sugar Company in Chino, California.[3] In 1897 Oxnard built the fourth factory, the Pacific Beet Sugar Company, at Oxnard, California.[2] These were the four companies that formed American Beet Sugar.

Expansion of the company continued, with construction completed on a plant at Rocky Ford, Colorado in 1901.[2]

American Beet Sugar changed its name to American Crystal Sugar in August, 1934.[4]

In February, 1973, the American Crystal Sugar Company ceased to be a public company when it was bought out by the Red River Valley Sugarbeet Growers Association for $50 million.[5][6]

ACS opened its Mason City, Iowa beet sugar factory in 1917 and closed it in 1973. It had come under pressure from the Iowa Water Pollution Control Commission for discharging waste into the Winnebago River and for air pollution, but it was also attributed to financial losses, a new factory at Renville, Minnesota, and fewer acres being grown.[7]

Company imposed lockout

In August 2011, 96% of American Crystal Sugar employees rejected a pact that would have increased wages 13% over five years (2.5% per year) but which would have demanded greater worker contributions to health insurance coverage and major contract language givebacks, including fewer seniority rights. After five votes over a 20-month period, 55% of the members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers' International Union Local 167G ratified a contract that closely resembled the previous four proposals. After nearly 650 employees quit over the lockout period, only about 400 reported to work following the final vote.

Political contributions and activities

American Crystal Sugar Company was the third largest donor in America to Republican lawmakers who sought to block certification of the 2020 presidential election results, leading to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. [8] The first two were Koch Industries and Valero Energy.

References

  1. ^ Olson, David (15 January 2012). "A brief history of American Crystal Sugar Co". InForum. Retrieved 13 August 2023.
  2. ^ a b c "American Crystal Sugar Company: An Inventory of Its Records at the Minnesota Historical Society". Minnesota Historical Society. Retrieved 27 August 2023.
  3. ^ Osborne, Thomas J. (1972). "Claus Spreckels and The Oxnard Brothers: Pioneer Developers of California's Beet Sugar Industry, 1890-1900". Southern California Quarterly. 54 (2): 117–25 – via JSTOR.
  4. ^ "Three new united aircraft units apply for listing shares on the stock exchange". The New York Times. 3 August 1934. p. 25. Retrieved 13 August 2023 – via Proquest.
  5. ^ Wright, Robert A. (25 February 1973). "Sugar Beet Growers Cultivate Controversy". The New York Times. Retrieved 13 August 2023 – via Proquest.
  6. ^ Pacey, Margaret D. (4 March 1974). "Going private: More firms are turning their backs on wall street". Barron's National Business and Financial Weekly. Retrieved 13 August 2023 – via Proquest.
  7. ^ "Sugar Firm Closes Down" (PDF). Springs Gazette-Telegraph. 25 February 1973. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  8. ^ Bill Alison (6 Jan 2020). "GOP Election Deniers Get Corporate PACs' Cash Again in 2022 Bet". Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 Jan 2020.


Further reading

  • Crane-Murdoch, Sierra (2015-04-01). "Sugar Days". Virginia Quarterly Review. 91 (2).
  • Norris, Jim (2009-01-15). North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry (1 ed.). St. Paul, Minn: Minnesota Historical Society Press. ISBN 9780873516310.
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