Marigold Foods comes of age: innovative subsidiary key to National Dairy Holdings

Dairy Foods, Dec, 2002

dairy case and the ice cream freezer and you'll see distinctive packaging and point-of-sale marketing.

Outdoor advertising features an animated cow donning a variety of accessories to suit a particular product and flavor.

The "It's the Cows" slogan has found its way into a number of marketing efforts. Outdoor advertising features an animated cow donning a variety of accessories to suit a particular product and flavor.

The company co-opted the beanbag toy craze of the 90s with Moo-Babies. Customers saved proof of purchase symbols and redeemed them for the little cows, each with its own look and name keyed to a specific flavor. A current promotion features bobble-head cows.

What Marigold does today with product development, packaging and marketing, makes it look like a company with a 10-year head-start on the competition, which in a way it is.

During the 80s and 90s, as Marigold and Crowley were thriving under Wessanen, the landscape of the North American retail and dairy industries changed dramatically. Large, diversified players with an interest in dairy suddenly pulled out or were broken up and sold off. Before long, an acquisition race began which ultimately resulted in the 2001 merger of Dean Foods and Suiza.

Changing partners

Shortly before that acquisition race reached its conclusion, three Texas dairy veterans, C.O. "Tex" Beshears, Tracy Noll, and Allen Meyer, along with the deal-making cooperative Dairy Farmers of America, formed National Dairy Holdings. The group's first major acquisition was the dairy division of Wessanen USA. Since then NDH acquired 11 Dean Foods plants divested to satisfy the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jim Green, Marigold's CEO has been intimately involved in the evolution of the dairy industry. In fact his career has somewhat mirrored those changes. Green Dairy Inc. was founded in 1927 in York, Pa. Green served as president of his family's business, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He joined Crowley Foods in 1986 when Crowley purchased Green's dairy, and has been at the helm of Marigold since 1992. Green says Marigold benefited from the resources and autonomy offered by Wessanen and continues to do so under NDH.

"National Dairy and Wessanen are both exceptional companies so we've had a very fortunate situation here," he says. "Both companies have been committed to growth and have shown a willingness to invest in our business, and help us grow our brands and better serve our customers. Both companies have a belief in running their businesses on a decentralized basis. Each of the regions still have the ability to react to the marketplace but at the same time we benefit from the economies of scale."

If anything, that may have escalated under National Dairy, where the top brass have years of experience in the U.S. dairy business.

"These three individuals have a tremendous knowledge of the dairy industry and that's a terrific resource for the guys who run the regions. They understand what the customers are all about."