"Feast on Turkey Day: America's Largest Privately Held Company Serves Up Dinner"
Originally Published 2 years ago — by Forbes
Cargill, America's largest privately held company, dominates the Thanksgiving-industrial complex by supplying key ingredients for traditional Thanksgiving dishes, including gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, cornbread mix, and marshmallows. Cargill also manufactures vegetable oils, salt, sugar alternatives, and even vegetable wax for candles. As the third-largest turkey producer in the US, Cargill supplies one-third of the 40 million turkeys consumed on Thanksgiving. The company's turkey business is a significant part of its $28 billion annual sales in the North America protein division. Cargill's long history in the turkey industry positions it to potentially surpass its publicly traded competitors, Butterball and Jennie-O.