History & Origin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Early Evolution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Modern Business . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Global Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Recent Efforts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Company DNA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Social Media Accounts . . . . . . . . . . . 16

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In 1925, Samuel E. Dean Sr. founded Dean Foods after having

worked at a brokerage company trading evaporated milk in

Chicago

By 1930, Dean moved into fresh milk processing

He became one of the thousands of localized American milk

bottlers in the period up to the Second World War

Realized that there were three ways to improve his position:

By building brands of milk that would increase his leverage

against retailers

By developing alternatives to dairy that would decrease his

reliance on cooperatives

By increasing the scale of his business that would enable

investment in greater efficiency and by lowering costs, winning

more business and increasing profits.

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As early as 1943, Sam had his own R&D lab The first tangible output was a non-dairy powdered coffee creamer By 1947, he got himself into the ice cream business Sam was faced with the problem of milk being a local industry due

to limited shelf-life, transportation costs and product quality

reasons. He went on an acquisition spree to make way to a nationwide milk

business The acquisitions also brought capabilities into Dean Foods that

helped it diversify and build brands Reiter Dairy in Ohio came with cottage cheese-making facilities Ryan Milk in Kentucky had aseptic production facilities that

enabled life production of long life UHT products. Ice cream unit boomed, supplying over 400 Baskin-Robbins

stores In 1986, Dean diversified into frozen and canned vegetables It merged with the Larsen Company, third largest in America

behind Green Giant and Del Monte.

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Ted Beshears, Chairman of the Milk Industry Foundation and a

former manager of milk plants for South-land Corporation and

entrepreneur, Glenn L. Engles. Beshears and Engles joined forces in

1988 in the packaged ice business.

In 1993, they switched their attention to the milk market, buying a

Puerto Rican dairy, Suiza Dairy.

Dean Foods, with their past emphasis on buying strong local milk

brands, had a 50/50 split in their sales between branded and

private label

But they faced the same pressures

There was over-capacity within the dairy producing industry

This reduced the leverage of even the big companies such as

Dean and Borden, as less efficient independent operators

would undercut on price just to stay in business.

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In 1995, Suiza had sales of over $1 billion, and they needed all the

capital they could get in 1997, making eight acquisitions in the year.

Their crowning glory was a $960 million acquisition of Morningstar

Group Inc., a move that took Suiza ahead of Dean Foods

It also brought Suiza to be nationally recognized dairy and dairy-

substitute brands into their portfolio.

By 1999, Suiza had made forty acquisitions.

They achieved an annual sales of nearly $4.5 billion; doubled their

share price in four years and investing a nearly $200 million a year

into upgrading facilities and equipment.

In 2000, Suiza upped the pace again, buying Southern Foods Group,

the country’s third-largest milk processor

Suiza was now clearly the number one dairy processor and

distributor in the country. Suiza now had the capability to sell and

deliver every product in the dairy chiller cabinet to any customer in

the United States6

The phenomenal success of Suiza Foods was recognized:

Forbes 2000 Platinum List of the finest companies in America

Fortune magazine’s 2000 list of America’s Most Admired

Companies

By May 2001, Suiza signed up another major national brand into its

licensed brand program with a deal to launch, manufacture and

market P&G’s Folger’s Jakada, a low fat chilled coffee drink

Simultaneously, Dean Foods had continued its own acquisition

strategy at a more sedate pace and concentrated upon the

vegetables side of their business

Innovation continued on the dairy side when Mayfield Dairy Farms,

their Tennessee division.

With national scale and scope, Suiza was now an attractive option

for other companies to license their brands.

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They developed a single-serve milk plastic bottle:

Ideal for sale in school-vending machines

An innovation that was quickly propagated across their other

regional companies

Under the name of Milk Chugs

2001 ended with Suiza’s biggest deal to date: the acquisition of

Dean Foods itself, for $1.5 billion.

This gave the company, which adopted the better-known name

of Dean Foods, over 30% of the US liquid milk market.

Two-thirds of the combined Suiza/Dean product range was

branded and one third of the range was private label

The merged company resolved its arrangement with Dairy

Farmers of America by handing over $165 million and six plants

where Dean and Suiza had overlapped

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The combined ice cream operation were the third-largest in the

country; with annual sales revenues of nearly $1 billion

Suiza’s Morningstar Foods was also combined with the non-dairy

components of Dean Foods

Included their highly successful range of Marie’s and Dean’s

refrigerated dips

By May 2002 the purchase of White Wave, makers of the leading

brand in the soy beverage and food sectors. Silk was made.

Further good news on Silk came in the summer when it was

listed nationwide by Starbucks as their sole soy beverage

Also during 2002, licensing rights across all dairy products for

another strong brand, Land O’Lakes, was acquired.

The biggest purchase was the country’s leading brand of organic

dairy foods, Horizon Organic, in January 2004

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Dean took costs out by removing supply overlaps, infusing capital

to improve processing efficiencies

They also had superior marketing, management and R&D expertise

that each acquired company could utilize

They initially solely focused on building their milk and dairy product

brands by mostly acquiring or merging with both dairy producers

and top brands in the country as well as abroad

Eventually they diversified by creating a separate division for their

vegetables products.

They also developed a Direct Store Delivery (DSD) network for their

milk operations, offering retailers a fresher product and allowing

their own drivers/salesmen to replenish and merchandise the dairy

fixture.

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The European Markets:

Acquired 75% of Leche Celta, 4th largest brand in Spain and 2nd

largest milk brand in Portugal (2000)

Acquired Tiger Foods ( May 2004)

Acquired Horizon Organic which also included Rachel’s Organic,

a premium UK organic dairy company which held the number

one position in organic milk and number two in organic

yoghurt.

o Combined with Leche Celta to form a new international

division

Acquired Alpro, which was the leading European branded

company for soy and plant-based dairy equivalents: it had

production facilities in Belgium, Netherlands, France and UK

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2004

Dean Foods acquired Horizon Organic Holding Corporation, maker

of a full line of organic milk and dairy products.

Dean Foods consolidated Silk, Horizon Organic® and other branded

businesses such as WhiteWave Foods Company

2005

Dean Foods spun off Dean Specialty Foods Group, which included

pickles, dips, dressings and foodservice products as TreeHouse

Foods

2006

Standard & Poor's announced that Dean Foods will be added to the

S&P 500 Index

2007

Dean Foods profits dropped due to the global financial crisis, due to

increase of raw materials and price wars for it. 12

2008

Dean Foods issued first corporate responsibility report

2009

Dean Foods acquired Alpro, a European leader in soy-based

products

2012

The WhiteWave Foods Company (NYSE:WWAV), a wholly owned

subsidiary of Dean Foods Company, completed initial public

offering

2013

Dean Foods sold the Morningstar Foods division to Saputo Inc.

(TSX: SAP).

Dean Foods completed the spin-off of The WhiteWave Foods

Company (NYSE:WWAV) and divests the remaining shares.

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Milk producers attempt to manage the imbalances due to

consumer’s demand to their own advantage: converting surplus

milk to butter, powder and cheese.

Dean Foods were able to increase their sales of these items, divert

more milk into those products.

They thus drive up the price of bulk liquid milk to would-be

bottlers. It takes smart strategy to succeed in this world.

Gaining an annual sales of over $13 billion, more than Heinz and

equal to Kellogg’s, they must be the least well known of the

world’s big packaged goods companies

This anonymity was due to two factors:

Very little of what they sell is branded Dean’s

A dominant force in the cut-throat but near-anonymous world

of America’s dairy chiller cabinets

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Dean Foods became a giant via an exceptionally well-executed

acquisition strategy that gave a critical mass to develop an

advantaged route to market and low cost base for milk.

The scale of their milk business, together with the strong customer

links inherent in a private-label-dominated category, was then

leveraged to expand into better branded sections of the chiller

cabinet.

Their various skill-sets: acquisitions, customer relations and brand

building, are now required in order to thrive in today’s retail

environment.

Dean Foods had shown the benefits of taking the initiative to

create their own future. The proceeds from the IPO and the sale of

Morningstar Foods are going to pay down debt. This substantially

strengthens Dean Foods’ balance sheet and gives a greater

flexibility to make big moves in building Dean and WhiteWave 15

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/dean-foods 

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DeanFoods

Twitter: www.twitter.com/deanfoods

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