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The roots of the National Grape Cooperative reach back to The Great Depression of the 1930's. With nationwide economic hardship sharply reducing demand for grape juice, grape growers and processors were faced with a bleak future. In 1933, just when things looked the worst, a businessman named Jack M. Kaplan entered the picture. Kaplan had no experience in the grape juice business, but he knew a good investment opportunity when he saw one. He began by purchasing a small grape processing plant in Brocton, N.Y., from five local growers’ cooperatives. He called his new company the National Grape Corporation.
Believing that a strong, close relationship with the growers was essential to success, Jack Kaplan chose to buy grapes for his juice exclusively from the five cooperatives and an organization called North East Fruit Growers. By negotiating a five-year contract guaranteeing delivery of nearly double the yearly grape tonnage the cooperative had previously produced, Kaplan helped revive the declining eastern Concord grape industry. Just as the results of Kaplan’s efforts were beginning to pay off with rising grape prices and increased profits, World War II arrived, and with it, price ceilings on commodities. While private processors such as National Grape Corporation were required to comply with the price controls, cooperatives were not. Not surprisingly, many grape growers began forming small cooperatives to get higher prices for their products. Kaplan believed there was strength in numbers and that the proliferation of small cooperatives would only hurt the growers’ business in the long run. His response was to offer to sell the profitable Brocton plant to the growers – if they would form a single, large cooperative. The growers accepted the offer and formed The National Grape Co-operative Association Inc. in 1945.
Within weeks of signing the agreement, Jack Kaplan learned that the 76-year-old Welch Grape Juice Company was for sale. Recognizing the tremendous brand equity in the Welch's name - not to mention its production and distribution facilities in five states - Kaplan moved to buy Welch's. But his goal wasn't simply to make money for himself; he wanted to eventually sell Welch's to the growers in order to put them in complete control of their destiny, from raw fruit to finished product.
It took several years for the growers to raise the money from Cooperative earnings, but in 1956, National Grape Cooperative completed its purchase of Welch's. The Cooperative established a unique, two-board system that governs the business to this day. National's Board focuses on cooperative and ownership issues and the production and delivery of quality grapes with Welch's Board being charged with product development, manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
Today, over four decades after the acquisition, National Grape Cooperative has over 1,400 growers farming 49,000 acres in Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Ontario, Canada. At the same time, Welch's has become the unchallenged growth leader in the industry.
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