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Article: Thwarting adversity: OH-based Cooper Farms turned tragedy into opportunity after a devastating tornado halted its cooked turkey business. Thanks to a brand new facility, the company is armed for growth.(Corporate Report)
- Article from:
- The National Provisioner
- Article date:
- January 1, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 BNP Media. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Cooper Farms' family business pinpoints 1938 as the birth year of the turkey-industry heritage that seeded a modern and progressive enterprise positioned as a key contributor to the economy in Northwest Ohio.
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More accurately, however, the business was born in the early 1900s as a cottage industry, when the first Cooper raised a small flock of turkeys in the backyard at the family homestead for "egg" money. Her son Virgil, who grew up helping and learning about raising and marketing live turkeys, opted to continue the enterprise as a side business to his full-time factory job after his mother's death in 1938. He was 22 years ...