Organic Valley keeps growing literally and figuratively

Farmer-owned coop grown by double
digit percentages nearly every year

It started with seven farmers. Seven.

Now, Organic Valley is an ever-growing business in an industry that keeps snowballing in growth.

The La Farge-based cooperative has grown, typically, by double-digit percentage rates every year since it started 30 years ago.

“Part of it is,” Holly Parr, with the coop, said at the MOSES organic farming conference at the La Crosse Center last weekend, “people are really starting to pay attention to what they eat and where their food comes from.”

Organic, which recently passed the billion-dollar-per-year sales mark, continues to look for farmers to switch to organic production in order to satisfy demand. 

“We started with seven farmers in Vernon County, Wisconsin, and from that rose this, really, giant,” Parr said. “We are, in fact, still bringing farmers on and we’re still always looking for farmers, too.”

And, that billion dollars in sales by Organic Valley, is the first time an organic food company in the world has accomplished such a feat.