From commodities to customers: 2000–Present

Left to right: 1999 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, awarded in 2000; new Cargill brand, 2002; Peter's Chocolate joins Cargill, 2003.

Cargill adopts a new brand; shifts focus to partnering with customers 

By the end of the twentieth century, changes in the food industry, including consolidation and tightening commodity margins, meant Cargill could not prosper if it kept commodity transactions at the center of its business. Cargill began forming closer relationships with customers to provide them with solutions to their pressing business concerns. It recognized that its success was inextricably linked to its customers' success. 

Cargill's goal of becoming the premier global food and agriculture company pushed a renewed emphasis within the company on innovation and technology. Cargill moved even further up the value chain. The company evolved from trading soybeans, to processing them into meal and oil, to producing high-value natural vitamin E from a soybean byproduct. And it moved from trading corn, to processing corn into ethanol and fructose, to creating a whole new family of renewable products — from plastics to fabric — made from corn.