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Conagra Brands, Inc. (previously named ConAgra Foods) is an American consumer packaged goods company headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. Conagra makes and sells products under various brand names in three areas: frozen, snack, and staples. These products are available online and in supermarkets, restaurants, and other food service establishments. Conagra is a Fortune 500 company.

Conagra began in 1919 as Nebraska Consolidated Mills, a conglomerate of four grain milling companies. In the 1950s and 1960s, it expanded its areas of commerce, distributing cake mixes and entering into the beef and poultry industries. The company faced bankruptcy in the 1970s, but sold underperforming assets to pay down its debt. It began acquiring a large number of companies in the 1980s and 1990s, purchasing approximately 200 over a 20-year period and becoming the largest meatpacker in the world.

In the 2000s, the company sold its meatpacking divisions and divested itself from the beef and poultry industries to focus on consumer packaged goods, acquiring such companies as Pinnacle Foods, which included the Vlasic and Birds Eye brands.

19191949: Founding and early years
Conagra was founded in September 1919 as Nebraska Consolidated Mills (NCM) by Alva Kinney. The company was a conglomerate of four grain milling companies headquartered in Grand Island, Nebraska. The company moved its headquarters to Omaha, Nebraska, in 1922 following the purchase of Updike Mill. That year, NCM posted a profit of $175,000, its first profit since its founding.

In 1941, under the leadership of R.S. Dickinson, the company opened a mill in Decatur, Alabama. It was NCM's first plant outside of Nebraska.

19501970: Expansion and decline
NCM expanded in the 1950s and 1960s. The company launched its Duncan Hines cake mix division in 1951, which by 1955 sold 180 million units annually. The division was sold to Procter & Gamble (P&G) in 1956 when Hines-Park Foods, which owned the Duncan Hines name, merged with P&G. In 1957, NCM built its first mill outside the continental United States, constructing a plant in Puerto Rico.

NCM began diversifying its business in the 1960s while expanding its milling operations. The company built a mill in Spain and in 1963 purchased 513 acres of land in Puerto Rico to raise beef cattle, demonstrating the feasibility of raising livestock on the island. In 1969, the company purchased Montana Flour Mills, spanning its operations from the northern to southern borders of the U.S. Faced with declining profits in the milling industry, NCM also expanded into the poultry industry during the 1960s, including shipping eggs for hatching to Puerto Rico.

19711999: Rebranding and resurgence
NCM changed its name to ConAgra in 1971. The name is a combination of the Latin words "con" ("with") and "agra" ("from the earth"). Two years later, the company went public and began trading on the New York Stock Exchange. However, losses suffered in 1974 from bad investments and commodities speculation had the company facing bankruptcy. ConAgra hired Pillsbury executive C. Michael Harper to be its chief operating officer in the fall of 1974 and tasked him with stabilizing the company. Harper began selling what he deemed to be unnecessary buildings and plots of land owned by the company, as well as entire divisions that did not align with ConAgra's new direction as a company that primarily dealt with basic food items. By 1976, Harper sold 25 assets and reduced the company debt by $35 million. He was named chief executive officer (CEO) that year. ConAgra's gross sales topped $1 billion for the first time in 1981.

After returning to profitability, ConAgra began making numerous acquisitions. It acquired approximately 200 companies over a 20-year period, including Banquet Foods in 1980, Peavey in 1982, Armour and Company in 1983, Monfort in 1987, Lamb Weston in 1988, and Beatrice Foods in 1990. The acquisitions of Monfort and Beatrice made ConAgra the world's largest meatpacker and second-largest food processor, respectively. By the mid-1980s, ConAgra was vertically integrated and manufactured or supplied all manner of products in its supply chain, including seed, fertilizer, tires, and clothing. ConAgra also created brands during this time, most notably the Healthy Choice line of prepackaged dinners, launched in 1988.

During this period of growth, ConAgra also came under greater scrutiny for its business practices, including the demolition of the Jobbers Canyon Historic District to build the company's new headquarters; its use of pesticides; sanitary and labor practices in its meat processing divisions; and the pricing of consumer goods.

In 1987, Harper threatened to move ConAgra's headquarters out of Omaha unless the city approved the demolition of Jobbers Canyon, a warehouse district located along the Missouri River. The district had been declared a historical site and its demolition was opposed by historical preservation groups, but the city ultimately capitulated, razing the district in 1989. As of 1994, it was the largest destruction of a historic site in the United States.

ConAgra was found guilty of tampering with scales when measuring the weight of incoming birds from Alabama chicken farmers in 1989 and settled a class action suit in 1995 levied against ConAgra, Hormel Foods, and Delta Pride Catfish for conspiring with other companies to fix the price of catfish, though no company admitted wrongdoing in the case. Two years later, ConAgra pleaded guilty in a federal case to spraying water on grain in its Peavey unit, fraudulently increasing the grain's weight to boost profits, and bribing federal officials. The company was charged $8.3 million for the case. It also settled a civil suit with farmers in Indiana for $2 million. ConAgra was named one of the "Top 100 Corporate Criminals of the 1990s" by the Multinational Monitor.

By 1992, ConAgra's annual sales had topped $21 billion. The company continued to make acquisitions and launch product lines throughout the 1990s, including Marie Callender's frozen product line in 1994 and GoodMark Foods in 1998. Also in 1998, ConAgra acquired several brands from RJR Nabisco, including Egg Beaters and Nabisco's table spread unit, which included margarines under the Parkay and Blue Bonnet brands.

20002015: From meatpacking to packaged goods
ConAgra rebranded as ConAgra Foods in 2000. The first half of the ensuing decade was marked by the sale of the company's fresh and refrigerated meat units, beginning with the sale of its majority stake in Swift & Company to Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst and Booth Creek Management in 2002. The Swift sale ended ConAgra's involvement in the fresh beef and pork industries. The same year, ConAgra joined a coalition of food producers and trade associations, including PepsiCo, General Mills, and CropLife International to defeat Oregon Ballot Measure 27, which would have required the labeling of genetically modified food in the state.

In 2006, the company sold its refrigerated meats divisions, including the Butterball, Eckrich, and Armour brands, to Smithfield Foods for $575 million. ConAgra CEO Gary Rodkin said the sale was part of an ongoing plan to "streamline" ConAgra's offerings. In 2007, ConAgra removed diacetyl from its microwave popcorn recipes following reports that the compound was linked to cases of Bronchiolitis obliterans.

In the latter half of the 2000s and into the 2010s, ConAgra began acquiring more companies as it shifted its focus to packaged foods. ConAgra purchased Watts Brothers Farms from Don Watts to bolster its Lamb Weston division in 2008 and purchased Ralcorp in 2012. Also in 2012, the company joined with PepsiCo, Walmart and approximately 20 other food firms to defeat Proposition 37, a California ballot measure which would have mandated the labeling of genetically modified foods. In 2014, ConAgra acquired TaiMei Potato Industry Limited, an Inner Mongolian potato processor, to further bolster Lamb Weston. ConAgra sold Ralcorp to TreeHouse Foods for $2.7 billion in 2015 and purchased Blake's All Natural Foods the same year. ConAgra spun off Lamb Weston into an independent company in 2016.

During the 2000s and 2010s, ConAgra faced further scrutiny for its practices. It received low marks on environmental stewardship from Ceres and Newsweek, with the company ranking 342nd of 500 on the latter's inaugural "Green Rankings" list. In 2013, a California judge ordered ConAgra, along with Sherwin-Williams and NL Industries, to pay $1.1 billion for the renovation of homes in 10 California counties which had been painted with lead paint sold by the companies. ConAgra was named a defendant in the suit as they had assumed the liabilities of W.P. Fuller & Co. following a series of mergers; after multiple appeals, the company reached a settlement amount of $305 million in 2019.

ConAgra also drew attention for its labor and health practices. Company plants had several worker safety and sanitation citations in the early 2000s and the company paid a $1.5 million settlement in 2002 after charges of discriminatory hiring practices were levied against subsidiary Gilroy Foods by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

ConAgra products were also the subject of several recalls during this time. The company recalled 19 million pounds of ground beef after 19 people became ill after consuming it in 2002. In 2007, ConAgra and United States Department of Agriculture issued a consumer advisory related to the company's frozen turkey pot pies after regulators tied the pie to more than 150 cases of salmonella in the U.S. ConAgra offered refunds to consumers and encouraged stores to pull the pies from their shelves. In October 2007, the company issued a formal recall of all pot pies made between 2005 and 2007.

The same year, ConAgra initiated a recall of all Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter made from 2004 to 2007 due to salmonella contamination. In total, at least 625 people in 47 states were sickened by the tainted peanut butter. The company pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of distributing adulterated foodstuffs in 2016 and was ordered to pay $11.2 million in fines and cash forfeitures, the largest penalty ever levied in an American food safety case. In addition to the criminal fines, ConAgra paid more than $36 million in civil settlements.

In 2009, a ConAgra plant exploded in Garner, North Carolina, killing four and injuring 67. Investigators determined the explosion was caused by an improperly installed water heater that released natural gas into the building. ConAgra temporarily resumed production in the Garner plant, but closed the facility in 2011. The explosion led to revisions of the International Fuel Gas Code and International Residential Code related to the purging of natural gas lines.

2016present: Relocation and focus
In 2016, ConAgra moved its headquarters to Chicago, Illinois, and rebranded as "Conagra Brands". The company continued to acquire packaged goods brands, purchasing Frontera, Red Fork, and Salpica in 2016; Thanasi Foods and Angie's Artisan Treats in 2017; and Pinnacle Foods, which included the Duncan Hines, Birds Eye, and Vlasic Pickles brands, in 2018. The company sold the Peter Pan brand to Post Holdings in January 2021. In June 2022, Conagra opened a 245,000 square-foot vegetable processing facility in Waseca, Minnesota for its Birds Eye vegetable brand.

Company overview
As of 2022, Conagra had 38 manufacturing facilities in the United States and employed approximately 18,000 people. It had net sales of $11.5 billion in fiscal year 2022. The company is a member of the Fortune 500.

The board of directors are president and CEO Sean M. Connolly, Anil Arora, Thomas K. Brown, Manny Chirico, George Dowdie, Fran Horowitz, Richard H. Lenny, Melissa Lora, Ruth Ann Marshall, and Denise A. Paulonis.

Brands
Conagra produces a wide array of food products including cooking oil, frozen dinners, hot cocoa, hot dogs, peanut butter and many others. Some of Conagra's major brands include Act II, Angie's BoomChickaPop, Bertolli ready meals, Chef Boyardee, David Sunflower Seeds, Duke's, Duncan Hines, Gardein, Healthy Choice, Hebrew National, Hunt's, Marie Callender's, Orville Redenbacher's, Pam, Reddi-Wip, Slim Jim, Vlasic, and Udi's Healthy Foods. In 2022, the company's EVOL brand launched a line of carbon-neutral frozen meals.

Philanthropy
The company's philanthropic arm, the Conagra Brands Foundation, provides support in states where it has a presence, including organizations in Nebraska, Georgia, California, and Pennsylvania.

In 2006, the company launched the "Shine the Light on Hunger" campaign, an annual fundraiser for the Food Bank of the Heartland held in Omaha in conjunction with a holiday festival in the city. In 2022, the campaign raised more than 12 million meals for food banks in Nebraska and Iowa.

In 2021, the Foundation disbursed $350,000 in grants to 22 nonprofit organizations in 11 states as part of its "Nourish Our Community" initiative. The same year, Conagra Brands partnered with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and the Hispanic Scholarship Fund to provide scholarships for black and brown students.

Feeding America partnership
Conagra began funding campaigns for Feeding America in 2010. In 2011, the company launched the "Child Hunger Ends Here" campaign, which included a television special hosted by Al Roker to raise awareness about childhood hunger and a partnership with Feeding America that saw Conagra donate more than 250 million pounds of food to the organization. The two groups have been allied since 1993, with Conagra providing more than $35 million to Feeding America as of 2011. In 2014, Conagra partnered with P&G and Hunter Hayes for another installment of the campaign, tied to Hayes's song "Invisible". The campaign also included appearances by Mario Lopez to promote it and pledges from the companies to donate up to 7 million meals.