Golden Growers Cooperative

General Golden Growers Cooperative is an agricultural cooperative association that processes corn into value-added products. The Cooperative is owned by 1,445 members, primarily from Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota, who deliver corn for processing. Formed in 1994 as a North Dakota agricultural cooperative, its initial goal was to enable members to gain additional value from their corn by processing it into products like corn sweeteners. The Cooperative achieved this by forming a joint venture with American Crystal Sugar Company, creating ProGold Limited Liability Company. ProGold designed and built a corn wet-milling facility in Wahpeton, North Dakota, to process corn into high fructose corn syrup and related co-products. The Cooperative's membership in ProGold LLC includes a right and obligation to deliver corn to the ProGold facility for processing, which its members fulfill on its behalf. On November 1, 1997, ProGold leased its entire facility to Cargill Incorporated, which has operated it continuously since then. Although ProGold no longer operates the facility, the Cooperative, through its members, maintains an obligation to deliver corn directly to Cargill at the wet-milling facility. On September 1, 2009, the Cooperative changed its domicile and entity form from a North Dakota cooperative to a Minnesota cooperative association. For tax purposes, it is treated as a partnership under Subchapter K of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986.