Cumberland Dairy history

A new processing plant was constructed on the north side of Bridgeton, which opened in June 1956.

By 1967, however, there were some 8,000, with more than $1 billion per year in sales.

In 1970 Cumberland Farms added, for the first time, a gas station to one of its stores.

In 1975 Cumberland Farms opened its thousandth store.

Cumberland Dairy had outgrown its processing plant by late 1977 and purchased a 36 acre tract of land in Rosenhayn where it built a 7,200 square foot refrigerated warehouse and a 2,000 square foot office.

Cumberland Farms withdrew from agriculture in 1986, selling 5,000 acres of Cape Cod land, along with a cranberry processing plant and freezer facilities, for $30 million.

Peter G. Pantazelos, brother-in-law of Jim Haseotes, succeeded Haseotes as chairman and chief executive officer of the company in March 1989 but resigned just six months after assuming the job.

Annual sales for its 1,150 stores was estimated as high as $3 billion in 1990.

Cumberland Farms won a round in 1992, however, when a federal appeals court upheld a ruling clearing the company of responsibility for the pollution of water wells serving 40,000 people in Dedham and Westwood, Massachusetts.

The sale of the refinery in 1994 raised about $22.1 million in funds repaid to Cumberland Farms.

The long-term debt was $236.7 million at the end of fiscal 1995.

With the growth of both dairy and non-dairy business, the Bridgeton processing plant was expanded again in 2001.