Cooperative Marketing: 

 Aggressive, Innovative 



Randall E. Torgerson 

 Administrator of Cooperative Services 

 U.S. Department of Agriculture 

 Washington, D.C. 



Y< 



ou seldom could get through the day without ben- 

 efiting in some way from western cooperatives 



Sunkist oranges, Blue Diamond nuts, Sun-Maid rai- 

 sins, Sunsweet prunes. Tree Top apple juice, Norbest 

 turkeys, Calavo avocados, C&H and American Crystal 

 sugar . , , these are just a few products by name. 

 Additionally, other western cooperatives are major 

 marketers of cotton, dairy, grain, rice and, most signif- 

 icantly, a host of fresh and processed fruits and 

 vegetables. 



Western cooperatives have been the traditional 

 marketing leaders for US. agricultural cooperatives. 

 Their innovative and aggressive operations have made 

 many of their names and brands household words 

 nationally, and in a few cases, internationally They 

 account for a substantial portion of total cooperative 

 business volume and they are a major influence in 

 western agriculture. 



California is the centerpoint of western cooperative 

 activity. Latest data available, 1979, show California 

 third nationally, in combined marketing, farm supply, 

 and related service volume The state's $4.2 billion 

 accounted for 7.5 percent of total U.S. cooperative 

 volume. North Dakota (included in this group), with 

 $1.4 billion, and Washington, with $1.37 billion, are 

 other leading states in this region. The combined vol- 

 ume of 14 western states exceeds $10 3 billion, or 

 18 3 percent of the $56.3 billion U.S. co-op volume. 



North Dakota had by far the greatest number of 

 cooperatives, 431, and memberships, 179,225. Com- 

 bined, this western region accounted for 1,282 or 19.9 



percent of the 5,445 US total number of coopera- 

 tives; and 685,069 memberships or 12 percent of the 

 5 6 million total memberships. 



Major commodities marketed in the western region, 

 in order of importance, are fruits and vegetables, grain 

 and oilseeds, dairy, sugar, cotton, rice, livestock, and 

 poultry (table 2). The first three commodities each 

 exceed $1.5 billion; the remainder much less than $1 

 billion. 



As a group in 1980, these western region coopera- 

 tives account for 24.7 percent of the region's total 

 marketing activity for the commodities they handle. 

 Western cooperatives' largest share is for sugar, 60.7 

 percent. Shares indicated in table 3 are at the 

 first-handler and are for the combined number of 

 cooperatives handling the commodity. 



As examples of marketing leadership, Sunkist was 

 advertising as early as 1895, even in export markets 

 The cooperative claims to be the first national adver- 

 tiser to mention vitamins in its copy — an ad in the 

 January 14, 1922, issue of Saturday Evening Post. 

 Sunkist holds several patents associated with citrus 

 processing. Calcot, Ltd., discovered a way to 

 reprocess cotton motes (short fibers left on seed after 

 ginning), previously considered trash and burned 

 Instead, the reprocessing in the 1979-80 season 

 returned $3 million to growers. 



Several cooperatives have been innovative m 

 energy Verendrye Electric Cooperative in North 

 Dakota is running its 30-vehicle fleet on a fuel blend of 

 sunflower and diesel oil. California Almond Growers 



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