ConAgra Inc stock certificate 1980's

Nice food piece with a vignette of a classical male figure holding a cornucopia in front of farm scenes.  Issued and cancelled, Dated in the 1980's. Owner of many famous food brands.

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

ConAgra was founded in 1919 by Frank Little and Alva Kinney, who brought together four grain mills as Nebraska Consolidated Mills (NCM). Initially headquartered in Grand Island, Nebraska, it 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 their 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 they sold their 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 their flour, instead turning in the opposite direction and focusing more on raw foods like poultry and expanding its livestock feed business.

In 1971, Nebraska Consolidated Mills changed its name to ConAgra, a portmanteau of con for consolidated and agra, similarly short in English for agriculture. The 1970s brought the company to the brink of ruin as it lost money expanding into the fertilizer, catfish, and pet product industries and as commodity speculation wiped out ConAgra's margins on raw foods. In 1974, C. Michael "Mike" Harper, an experienced food industry executive, took over the firm and brought it back from the brink of bankruptcy. Nonetheless, ConAgra's business model left it at the mercy of volatile commodity prices. In response, the company set off on a two-decade-long buying spree, purchasing over one hundred prepared food brands, starting with its 1980 purchase of Banquet Foods. It moved heavily into the frozen food business and the packaged meat industry, and then picked up a selection of other brands from firms like RJR Nabisco and Beatrice Foods among others, as the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s resulted in the divestiture or breakup of many major American consumer product firms. In 1993 alone it purchased $500 million in smaller firms, and in 1998 it purchased another $480 million in brands from Nabisco.

On May 23, 2001, ConAgra Foods Inc said it would restate its earnings for 1998, 1999 and 2000, due to accounting and conduct matters at its United Agri Products Cos unit. For fiscal 1998, revenues was cut from $24.27 billion to $24.19 billion. On March 24, 2005, ConAgra Foods Inc said the results for fiscal 2003 and 2004 would be restated to reflect a reduction in after-tax profits of $150 million to $200 million in total.

On November 27, 2012 ConAgra officials announced they were purchasing Ralcorp, pending Ralcorp shareholder approval, for approximately $4.95 billion. Stockholders of Ralcorp Holdings Inc. would receive $90 per share. The deal is expected to be finished by the end of March 2013. When done, it will make ConAgra the largest private-label packaged food business in the United States.

On July 14, 2014, ConAgra announced that it has acquired TaiMei Potato Industry Limited, a potato processor in Shangdu, Inner Mongolia. This acquisition expands ConAgra Foods’ Lamb Weston operations in a market that has growing demand for frozen potato products.

CAG BRANDS

Act II - Microwave Popcorn
Alexia - Appetizers, Artisan Breads, and Potato Products
Andy Capp's fries - flavored snack made to look like French fries.
Angela Mia - Tomato products and authentic Italian specialties
Award Cuisine - Foodservice specialties
Banquet - Frozen chicken and ready-to-heat meals
Big Mama Sausage - Snack-sized preserved sausages
Blue Bonnet - Margarine and bread spreads
Chef Boyardee - Ready-to-eat pasta meals
Chiffon margarine - Tubbed soft-margarine brand
Chun King - Chinese-style foods and meal packages
ConAgra Mills - Multi-use flours
Crunch 'n Munch - Glazed popcorn/nut mixture
David Sunflower Seeds - Sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds
Dennison's - Chili
Eagle Mills with Ultragrain - All-Purpose Flour made with Ultragrain
Egg Beaters - Processed egg product
Fernando's - Mexican entrees and appetizers
Fiddle Faddle - Glazed popcorn/nut mixture
Fleischmann's - Bread spreads
Gebhardt - Tex-Mex style foods
Golden Cuisine - Ready-made food for seniors
Gulden's - Mustard
Healthy Choice - Ready-to-eat and prepared foods
Hebrew National - Kosher hot dogs, cold cuts and condiments
Hunt's - Canned tomato products, ketchup and barbecue sauce
Hunt's Snack Pack - Shelf-stable pudding
J. Hungerford Smith - Dessert ingredients for restaurants
J.M. Swank - Food ingredient distributor
Jiffy Pop - Popcorn
Kid Cuisine - Prepared foods for children
La Choy - Chinese-style foods
Lamb Weston - Potato products
Luck's Incorporated - Canned baked beans
Mama Ginellis - Canned Ready to Eat Pasta Meals
Manwich - Canned sloppy Joe mix
Margherita - Italian-style processed meats
Marie Callender's - Frozen meals
Move Over Butter - Margarine
Orville Redenbacher's - Popcorn and Poppycock
PAM - Spray cooking oils
Parkay - Bread spreads
Patio - Tex-Mex-style frozen meals
Pemmican - Beef and turkey jerky
Penrose - Pickled sausages
Peter Pan - Peanut butter
Pogo - Corndogs
Poppycock - Premium Glazed popcorn/nut mixture
Ranch Style - Baked and Refried beans
Reddi-wip - Whipped cream
Ro-Tel - Canned tomato sauce
Rosarita - Mexican - style foods
Screaming Yellow Zonkers - Glazed popcorn (Discontinued)
Slim Jim - Meat snacks
Swiss Miss -Powdered cocoa for hot chocolate and pudding
Squeez 'N Go - Prepared pudding
The MAX - Pizzeria quality products for foodservice operators
Van Camp's - Canned beans
VH - Sauces and frozen foods (Available in Canada only)
Vogel Popcorn - Popcorn
Wesson - Cooking oils
Wolf Brand Chili - Chili