Darigold history

A contest among dairy families produced the cooperative's brand name, "Darigold" in 1920.

At a summer picnic in 1925, a prize was offered for the best suggestion of a brand name for the cooperative's dairy products.

By 1930, the UDA had purchased Dickey's Consolidated Dairy Products Company.

Renamed Issaquah Creamery, the business enlarged its physical plant at the site, and opened a Seattle distributing plant on Rainier Avenue South in 1932.

After 1950, ice cream and frozen dairy products supplanted butter as the principal use of fluid whole milk in the manufacturing of dairy products.

In order to capture this new market, CDP, in 1952, purchased three dairy plants, Alpine Dairy & Ice Cream Co., Apex Dairy, and Issaquah Creamery Co.

In 1957, CDP entered the international dairy market by acquiring an evaporated and condensed milk production facility in the Philippines.

Later known as Alpine Dairy, the business merged with Darigold in the early 1960’s.

The Northwest Dairymen's Association was formed in 1961 through a merger of 10 United Dairymen's affiliated co-ops in Puget Sound.

Responding to such changes in the dairy market, CDP enlarged and modernized its fluid milk processing plant in Seattle in 1962, which decades later would still stand as the largest fluid milk plant in the Pacific Northwest.

As dairy plants in other towns were closed, Issaquah’s plant expanded and took over butter production for the whole area in 1970.

In 1971, Pedersen's 12 year tenure at CDP came to a close.

Coincidentally, Jack also helped the Sonics to win their first NBA Championship in 1979.

In 1981, Mayflower Farms, representing dairy cooperatives in Oregon, merged with the NDA, making the NDA a genuine, regional cooperative.

With revenues of $725 million in 1990, Darigold, Inc. processed and marketed dairy products for Darigold Farm's 1,150 dairy farmers.

The Darigold Story: The History of a Dairy Cooperative in the Pacific Northwest, Darigold, Seattle, WA, 1993.

In 1995, artists painted a large mural on the dairy’s large wall, which faces Front Street.

? Five billion pounds of milk were produced in 1997.

While the rest of the country was asking 'Got Milk?' Darigold launched our 'Got Milkman?' Tour in 1998.

In 1999 the cooperative, in an effort to improve its marketing position, changed its name to Northwest Dairy Association, while changing the corporate name to WestFarm Foods.

Darigold packaging was again redesigned in the year 2000, this time with an inviting new look.

In 2010, the cooperative merged with the Montana dairy cooperative Country Classic.

The Darigold Farmalicious brand campaign launched in 2012 and includes tricked-out farm tractors, butter billboards, and an amazing corn maze.Darigold.

The Greater Issaquah Chamber of Commerce 2019 Business of the Year.