A lot has changed in our 95-year history. Back in 1921, bread cost 6 cents per loaf, the first transcontinental air mail flight made its way to New York City from San Francisco, some scientist named Albert Einstein was making his rounds at universities discussing his new "Theory of Relativity" and Vitamins D and E were just being discovered.

While we have evolved right along with the rest of the world, one thing that hasn’t changed in Land O’Lakes, Inc.’s 95 years is our pride in our cooperative roots and history, and our steadfast commitment to feeding human progress.

That commitment will be showcased at the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport as part of its “The Art of Food: A History of Minnesota Food Production” exhibit. The exhibit, which will be on display through November 15, celebrates Minnesota’s contribution to the food industry ranging from its world-famous Fortune 500 food companies and major food exporters to our reputation for graduating the top food scientists in the U.S. 

The display begins with Native Americans harvesting wild rice and progresses to breweries, distilleries, local restaurants, the University of Minnesota and local companies in the food industry including Land O’Lakes, General Mills, Cargill and others.

Our unique role

The Land O’Lakes portion of the exhibit will focus on our unique end-to-end view of the food value chain. From our farmer-ownership, to our iconic dairy, feed and crop inputs brands, we touch nearly every aspect of food production. The exhibit will feature artifacts representing each of these segments, bringing to life our story that may have begun with a group of dairy farmers looking to market butter on the East Coast, but has grown to include so much more.

Among the artifacts we submitted for the exhibit are butter boxes ranging from the original mid-1920s design to our innovative Half-Stick and European styles of the last decade, a Calf Milk Replacer bag from the 1950s and a Purina^® feed bag of the 2000s, and a soil sample bag representing our tremendous expansion into agronomy services in the 1970s. We also included classic black-and-white photos and signage dating back to our beginning.

About the exhibit

“The Art of Food” takes a fun, fact-filled look at how Minnesota cultivated an important role in global food production, answering questions like: What’s the world’s most popular cereal? How did wheat build one of the world’s largest food companies? How has grain contributed to science? And what’s the number one packaged food in the world—that’s Made in Minnesota?

Next time you fly in to Minnesota be sure to swing by Concourse C and learn about Land O’Lakes’ place in Minnesota’s proud history of food production.