ConAgra Foods

ConAgra Foods, Inc. is an American packaged foods company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. ConAgra makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, and food service establishments.

History

ConAgra was founded in 1919 by Frank Little and Alva Kinney, who brought together four grain mills as Nebraska Consolidated Mills (NCM) with its headquarters in Grand Island, Nebraska. The headquarters were moved to Omaha in 1922. The company ran at a profit until 1936, when Kinney retired. In 1940, the company began producing flour at its own mill, and in 1942 ventured into the livestock feed business. That year president R.S. Dickinson opened the company's first out-of-state facility in Alabama with a flour mill and animal feed plant.

After researching new uses for its flour, NCM funded the establishment of the Duncan Hines brand of cake mixes in 1951 as a way to market more flour. This venture was very successful, leading the company to its current place as the third largest flour miller in the U.S. However, this did not lead NCM to consider other food ventures, and instead it sold its assets in Duncan Hines to Procter & Gamble in 1956. As American households purchased more and more prepared and instant foods in the 1950s and 1960s, NCM chose not to expand into the businesses that used its flour, instead turning in the opposite direction and focusing more on raw foods like poultry and expanding its livestock feed business.