McCain Foods Usa, Inc history

In 1957 Wallace and Harrison McCain, along with their brothers Robert and Andrew, founded McCain® Foods.

In 1960 the Burley plant roared to life providing business to local commerce, contracts for local farmers, and jobs to 300 people.

By 1968 the company was ready to expand to another English-speaking member of the commonwealth and McCain Foods set its sites down under on Australia.

Continuing to grow in the southern hemisphere in 1971 McCain Foods acquired an existing French fry processing plant in Doylesfood, Australia.

In 1975 McCain bought a Washburn, Maine potato processing plant; a year later it purchased another United States plant, in Easton, Maine.

In 1976, McCain turned back to Europe, buying a French fry production facility in Whittlesey, England.

The decade's additional plant openings included the purchase of a Belgian frozen food company, Frima Viking, in April 1986.

All of this led him to acquire many honours, namely the Canadian business statesman award from the Harvard Business School, Toronto, in 1988.

The company bought New Zealand-based Alpine Foods Limited in 1990, renaming it McCain Foods New Zealand Ltd.

But Wallace challenged Harrison about who ran the business, which resulted in a lengthy series of lawsuits, costing the brothers more than £2m by 1994, seeing them constantly at odds with one another.

A decision in February 1995 upheld the decision of Harrison McCain and the directors to remove Wallace McCain from his position as co-chief executive.

The company acquired Everest Foods PLC of Womourne, England, and Growers Foods Limited of Hasting, New Zealand, in 1996.

In 1997, McCain Foods bought the Ore-Ida food service business from Heinz, and the Burley plant became part of the global McCain Foods family.

The company spent 1999 acquiring assets of Farscheure d'Europe in Vic-sur-Aisne, France, and expanding production with a $68.4 million addition to its Argentinean plant.

The year 2000 also brought plant openings at the newly renovated Easton, Maine expansion and the state-of-the-art French fry plant in Coaldale, Alberta.

McCain broke into the Far East in 2004 when it announced plans to open a $43.3 million French fry processing facility in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, in northeast China.

McCain Foods announces a CAD $200 million capital investment in its plant in Burley, United States and construction began in May 2017.