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Dean’s Country Market history
Dean’s Country Market company history timeline
When he founded the Dean Evaporated Milk Company in 1925, it consisted of one plant in Pecatonica, Illinois.
In 1925 he bought the Pecatonica Marketing Company, which ran an evaporated milk processing facility in Pecatonica, located in northwestern Illinois.
1925: Samuel E. Dean, Sr., enters the dairy industry through the purchase of Pecatonica Marketing Company in northwestern Illinois.
This pattern would be followed to an even larger extent by Engles in the dairy sector. It was ironic that Reddy Ice would be the company that Suiza Foods was founded upon, since Southland also traced its beginnings to Reddy Ice, which was launched in 1927 by 7-Eleven founder Joe C. Thompson.
The firm was renamed Dean Milk Company in 1929.
Suiza Dairy ("Suiza" is Spanish for "Swiss") had been founded in 1942 by Héctor Nevares, Sr., and was owned by the Nevares family until the purchase by the Engles-led partnership.
A research and development lab was established as early as 1943.
In 1947 Dean also entered the ice cream business.
In 1951 the company established new headquarters in Franklin Park, Illinois, in suburban Chicago.
Velda Farms, which was founded in 1955, manufactured and distributed fresh milk, ice cream, and related products under its own brand names to about 9,500 foodservice accounts, convenience stores, club stores, and schools.
A major milestone for the company came in 1961 with the purchase of Green Bay Food Company.
Dean Milk Company completed its first public offering of stock in 1961.
1962: Dean expands into specialty foods with the purchase of pickle maker Green Bay Food Company.
Reflecting this expansion, the company changed its name to Dean Foods Company in 1963.
Howard Dean became company president in 1970, along with some other changes in management that signaled a new era for Dean Foods.
In 1980 Florida companies McArthur Dairy Inc. and T.G. Lee Foods, Inc., were purchased, granting Dean a solid entry into that region.
Dean began serving Pennsylvania and eastern Ohio with its 1984 purchase of a Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, dairy.
Dairy products accounted for nearly 70 percent of Dean's total sales in 1984.
Moving out of the largely Midwestern markets proved profitable for Dean as early as 1985, when its Southern and Southwestern regions became the company's strongest performers.
A Kentucky-based dairy specialty company brought Dean into that area through a 1985 acquisition.
Dean's sales hit the $1 billion mark in 1985, after 13 consecutive years of record earnings.
Ryan Milk Company of Kentucky, also acquired in 1986, brought with it a line of aseptic products and a distribution network that reached 40 states.
Ice cream sales nearly doubled when Dean began supplying Jewel in 1986.
In 1986 Dean merged with Larsen Company to enter the vegetable business.
By 1987 Dean ranked third in frozen and canned vegetable sales, after Pillsbury's Green Giant and Nabisco's Del Monte.
However, the vegetable glut combined with higher raw-milk prices in 1987 to slow Dean's net income that year.
Dean purchased Verifine Dairy Products Corp. at the end of 1987.
In large part because of these two purchases, Dean's fluid milk sales grew 14 percent in 1988.
Later in 1988 Kaminski/Engles bought Sparkle Ice from The Circle K Company, another convenience store chain, and combined it into Reddy Ice.
Shaw's annual sales in 1989 were $55 million.
Dean also made some internal changes in 1989: Howard Dean became chairman; William Fischer became president; and Kenneth Douglas became vice-chairman.
The cost of acquisitions and the anti-trust settlement, combined with a drought-related fall-off in milk production, caused a dip in earnings going into 1989.
Dean sold its retail Baskin-Robbins ice cream business in 1989, but continued to be the stores' sole supplier for two of their major distribution areas.
Dean launched 1990 with the purchase of Mayfield Dairy Farms, Inc.
The operating earnings in specialty foods exceeded Dean's dairy products segment for the first time in fiscal 1990.
Another new product was introduced in 1990: a low-fat milk with reduced lactose, a sugar that causes digestion problems for some milk drinkers.
Dean purchased Cream o'Weber Dairy, Inc., of Utah in April 1991.
As raw-milk prices returned to pre-drought levels by summer 1991, the company refocused on its acquisition program.
Dean passed the $2 billion mark for the first time in 1991.
With one exception, all acquisitions through 1992 were privately held companies, often family owned.
However, an excess of crops in fiscal 1992 put a squeeze on Dean's profits in the vegetable segment.
In early 1993 Dean acquired W.B. Roddenbery Co.
In January 1994, Dean Foods completed negotiations with Yarnell Ice Cream Co. to manufacture and distribute a line of low-fat and non-fat dairy products under Yarnell's Guilt Free brand, and two months later Dean purchased Birds Eye frozen foods from Kraft General Foods for $140 million.
Similarly, Velda bought Skinner's Dairy Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, in January 1996.
Company stock was traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol SWZA. An additional $10 million was secured in August 1996 through a private placement of common stock to the T. Rowe Price Small Cap Value Fund.
By 1996 Dean's rapid expansion into the vegetable business was taking a severe toll on earnings, as excess production, stagnant prices, and weak demand hurt vegetable processors throughout the country.
In March 1997 Suiza Foods began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol SZA. Company stock ended 1997 trading at $59.56 per share, after reaching a high of $62.50.
The company had revenues of about $200 million in 1997.
In early 1998 Suiza expanded its presence in the Midwest through the February acquisition of Oberlin Farms Dairy, Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio, and the March purchase of Louis Trauth Dairy, Inc., of Newport, Kentucky.
Suiza settled the suit by agreeing to sell one of Broughton's Kentucky dairies, and the deal closed in June 1999 at a reduced price of $86 million plus the assumption of $20 million in debt.
1999: In this year and the next, Dean acquires a 36 percent stake in soymilk maker WhiteWave, Inc.
Continental Can also had nine European plants that manufactured food cans and plastic packaging; these operations were almost immediately identified as likely candidates for divestment, and they were in fact sold off in 2000.
2001 and Beyond: The New Dean Foods, a Creation of Suiza's Takeover of the Old Dean
In May 2002 Dean spent $192.8 million for the 64 percent of WhiteWave it did not already own.
In 2002, its first full year of operation, the new Dean posted revenues just shy of $9 billion.
Integration activities were the main priority in 2002, and a few plants were shut down and three noncore businesses in the old Dean's Specialty Foods division were divested.
Restructuring continued in 2003 as several more milk plants were closed and Morningstar Foods was transformed into the Dean Branded Products Group.
In a move important more for its marketing potential than for the potential sales, WhiteWave entered into an agreement with Starbucks Corporation for Silk to become the exclusive soymilk used at the numerous Starbucks outlets located throughout North America, starting in the summer of 2003.
Late in 2003 Dean's Specialty Foods Group bought the Cremora brand of nondairy powdered creamer from Eagle Family Foods, Inc.
Dean further bolstered its brand-name operations through the January 2004 purchase of the 87 percent of Horizon Organic it did not already own.
The "new" Dean Foods was a dairy giant, its Dairy Group generating nearly $9 billion in sales by 2004.
Dean shifted its Second Nature egg substitute, Mocha Mix nondairy creamer, and foodservice salad businesses into the Specialty group before completing the spinoff in June 2005, which created the new, publicly traded TreeHouse Foods, Inc.
The Rachel's Organic business was shifted into Dean's International division at the beginning of 2005.
2005: The Dean Specialty Foods Group is spun off as TreeHouse Foods, Inc.
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Dean’s Country Market competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ACME | 1992 | $17.5M | 75 | 86 |
| Buy Low Market | 1977 | $220.0M | 1,300 | - |
| Murry's | 1948 | $240.0M | 800 | - |
| Circle Foods | 1983 | $25.0M | 499 | - |
| Landmark Foods | 1973 | $86.4M | 50 | - |
| Joe Patti Seafood Co | - | $26.4M | 100 | - |
| P&C Foods | 1944 | $710,000 | 5 | - |
| Value Drug | 1934 | $6.7M | 125 | 11 |
| Tops Appliances & Cabinetry | - | $1.6M | 20 | 4 |
| Pacific Market International | 1983 | $35.0M | 142 | - |
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Dean’s Country Market may also be known as or be related to Dean s Country Market and Dean’s Country Market.