Northwest Dairy Association (formerly the Northwest Dairymen's Association; Trading as Darigold, Inc.) is an American dairy agricultural marketing cooperative. Headquartered in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

, Washington, it is owned by about 350 dairy farm members of the association located in

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyomi ...

, and

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columb ...

History

The cooperative was founded in 1918 as the United Dairymen's Association, and it bought the Consolidated Dairy Products Company in 1930. A contest among dairy families produced the cooperative's brand name, "Darigold" in 1920. 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. In 2006, the corporate name returned to Darigold. In 2010, the cooperative merged with the Montana dairy cooperative Country Classic. The co-op's annual sales are over $2.0 billion, and production is over of

milk Milk is a white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals (including breastfed human infants) before they are able to digest solid food. Immune factors and immune-modula ...

a year. In August 2003, Darigold locked out their union in one production facility. Workers in that facility continue to be represented by a union, as are employees in most Darigold production facilities. In June 2021, Darigold announced plans to build a multi-million production facility in Pasco, Wash. that represents significant investment in climate-friendly modernization. The co-op began 2022, sharing details of a leadership transition with Stan Ryan, its CEO of six years, announcing his retirement and Darigold executive Joe Coote named CEO.

References

External links

* Food and drink companies based in Washington (state) Manufacturing companies based in Seattle Agriculture in Oregon Economy of the Northwestern United States Dairy products companies of the United States Agricultural cooperatives in the United States Agricultural marketing cooperatives 1918 establishments in Washington (state) Food and drink companies established in 1918 American companies established in 1918 Dairy cooperatives {{Food-company-stub