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Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned cooperative that makes and sells butter and cheese and sells animal feed and crop supplies to farmers.
Land O'Lakes is a farmer-owned cooperative, which means the people who supply it with milk and grain are also its owners. It runs two big businesses under one roof: a dairy foods arm that churns out butter, cheese, and other products sold in grocery stores and restaurants, and an agricultural arm that sells animal feed, seed, crop protection, and other supplies to farmers.
On the dairy side, the cooperative turns members' milk into branded butter and cheese that shoppers recognize on the shelf—the butter with the Native American woman on the package is its most famous product. On the farm side, it acts as a supplier and partner to farmers, selling them the feed for their animals and the inputs for their fields, often through local retail outlets. It also exports grains and oilseeds. So it earns money both from consumers buying its food and from farmers buying what they need to run their operations. The cooperative structure matters. Instead of answering to outside shareholders, Land O'Lakes answers to its member-owners, who are farmers, and it passes profits back to them. That gives it a loyal supply base and a reason to care about farmers' success, but it also means it competes hard on price and efficiency against big food companies and farm-supply rivals rather than chasing the highest possible margins.
Headquartered in Minnesota, the co-op is a major player in the American food and agriculture system, with brands in dairy and a sprawling farm-supply network. Its business rises and falls with milk prices, crop conditions, and the broader farm economy—when farmers struggle, its feed and input sales feel it too.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026