Is Cargill a subsidiary of another company?

No. Cargill is the operating brand and the corporate identity of Cargill, Incorporated, which is not owned by any other company. It is controlled directly by the Cargill and MacMillan families, which hold approximately 88 percent of the shares, with the balance held mainly by employees.

William Wallace Cargill, a Scottish-American grain merchant, founded the company at age 21. After his death in 1909, his son-in-law John H. MacMillan Sr. took control, establishing the Cargill-MacMillan family ownership structure that persists today across more than 160 years of operation.

Does Cargill own any consumer brands?

Very few relative to its size. Its best-known consumer-facing brands are Truvia sweetener and Wilbur chocolate, and it licenses the Purina name for animal feed in certain markets. The vast majority of Cargill's revenue comes from selling ingredients, commodities, and services to other businesses rather than to consumers.

Food & Beverage

Who Owns Cargill?

Q: Is Cargill publicly traded?

No. Cargill is the largest privately held company in the United States and has never had a public listing. Shares are held by family members and through employee ownership programs. The company issues bonds, so some financial information becomes public through debt disclosures, but it does not file quarterly reports with the SEC.

Q: What is Cargill's market position?

Cargill is one of the four dominant global agricultural traders alongside ADM, Bunge, and Louis Dreyfus, and a top-tier producer of specialty starches, sweeteners, and food ingredients. With $154 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue it is the largest private company in the United States by revenue and the largest agribusiness in the world by most measures.

Cargill is the flagship brand of Cargill, Incorporated, the largest privately held company in the United States. Founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill and headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota, the company is controlled by the Cargill and MacMillan families, which own approximately 88 percent. In fiscal 2025 Cargill generated $154 billion in revenue and employed roughly 155,000 people in 70 countries.

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Parent Company

Cargill

Founded

1865

Status

Private

Headquarters

Minnetonka, Minnesota, USA

GlobalOfficial Website

Who Owns Cargill?

Parent Company: Cargill
Ownership Type: Brand division
Company Type: Privately Held

Brand	Parent Company	Ownership Type
Cargill	Cargill	Brand division

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Cargill on Amazon

History of Cargill

Founded: 1865
Founders: William Wallace Cargill

William Wallace Cargill founded the business in 1865 with a single grain warehouse in Conover, Iowa, at the end of the American Civil War. He expanded along new railway lines through Iowa and Minnesota, and by the 1880s the W. W. Cargill Company operated a network of grain elevators across the upper Midwest. Headquarters eventually settled in Minneapolis and later the lakeside suburb of Minnetonka.

After William Cargill died in 1909, his son-in-law John MacMillan led a difficult financial restructuring that established the Cargill-MacMillan family control still in place today. Under MacMillan and his sons John Jr. and Cargill MacMillan, the company built a river transport fleet, entered Canada in 1928, and expanded into feed, flour milling, and commodity trading.

The postwar decades turned Cargill into a diversified agribusiness. It opened its first overseas offices in the 1950s, entered meatpacking and poultry processing in the 1960s and 1970s, and became a major exporter of American grain. By the 1990s it had added cocoa processing, malt, salt, steelmaking (through the former North Star Steel), and financial risk management services for commodity customers.

Major acquisitions included Provimi, the Dutch animal nutrition company, purchased in 2011 for about $2.1 billion, and EWOS, a Norwegian salmon feed producer bought in 2015 for roughly $1.6 billion before being divested. In 2021 Cargill partnered with Continental Grain to acquire Sanderson Farms for $4.5 billion, forming Wayne-Sanderson Farms, the third-largest US chicken producer.

The company posted a record $177 billion in revenue in fiscal 2023 as pandemic-era food prices peaked, then saw revenue fall to about $160 billion in fiscal 2024 and $154 billion in fiscal 2025 as commodity prices normalized. The 2024 reorganization into three enterprises was framed as a simplification to improve competitiveness. In April 2026 the company officially opened a major canola processing facility in Regina, Saskatchewan, one of its largest recent capital projects.

About Cargill

Who owns Cargill?
Cargill is owned by the Cargill and MacMillan families, who together hold approximately 88 percent of the company. The remainder is held by employees and other private holders. It has been family-controlled since its 1865 founding.

Is Cargill publicly traded?
No. Cargill is the largest private company in the United States and has no stock listing. It has consistently stated its intention to remain privately held.

When was Cargill founded?
Cargill was founded in 1865 by William Wallace Cargill, who started with a grain storage business in Iowa at the end of the Civil War. It is headquartered in Minnetonka, Minnesota.

Who founded Cargill?
William Wallace Cargill founded the company in 1865. His descendants, through the Cargill and MacMillan families, still control approximately 88 percent of the business.

What is Cargill's market position?
Cargill is the largest US private company with $154 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue and roughly 155,000 employees. It is a global leader in agribusiness, commodity trading, and food ingredients, competing with ADM and Bunge as well as ingredient specialists.

What are Cargill's main businesses?
Cargill operates through three enterprises: Food (ingredients, cocoa, protein), Ag & Trading (commodity merchandising and logistics), and Specialized Portfolio (animal nutrition, salt). Its ingredients arm competes with Ingredion and Kerry in texture solutions.

Founded: 1865
Headquarters: Minnetonka, Minnesota, USA
Company Type: Privately Held
Revenue: $154 billion (FY2025)
Employees: Approximately 155,000

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Where Is Cargill Made / Based?

Headquarters: Minnetonka, Minnesota, USA
Manufacturing / Operations: United States, Brazil, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, France, China, Southeast Asia

Cargill Categories & Tags

Food Ingredients Agribusiness Specialty Starch Commodity Trading B2b Brand

Cargill Sustainability & Ethics

Cargill publishes an annual impact report covering fiscal-year ESG performance. For fiscal 2025 it reported a 20.9 percent reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions from a 2017 baseline, exceeding its stated goal, and investments of $69 million in efficiency and sustainability capital projects.

The company says it has transitioned 2.5 million acres to regenerative agriculture practices across North America since 2020 and restored 91 billion liters of water in water-stressed regions. It is a member of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and operates certification programs in cocoa and palm supply chains.

Cargill's sustainability record draws regular criticism from environmental groups. NGO reports have repeatedly linked its soy and beef supply chains in Brazil to deforestation risk in the Cerrado and Amazon regions, and the company has committed to deforestation-free South American soy supply chains with target dates that advocates consider insufficient. The company disputes the characterizations and points to its traceability investments.

Cargill Recalls & Controversies

Cargill's size and role in global food supply chains have made it a recurring target of litigation and activist scrutiny.

In 2021 the US Supreme Court ruled in favor of Cargill and Nestle in a long-running case brought by former child laborers from Mali who alleged the companies aided child slavery on Ivory Coast cocoa farms. The Court held that the plaintiffs could not sue under the Alien Tort Statute, while the underlying allegations about West African cocoa labor practices remained a matter of public record.

Environmental organizations including Mighty Earth and Rainforest Action Network have published reports criticizing Cargill's progress on deforestation commitments in South American soy and cattle supply chains. The company has responded with deforestation-free sourcing pledges and satellite monitoring programs.

The company has also faced periodic antitrust scrutiny. Wayne-Sanderson Farms, the poultry joint venture Cargill formed with Continental Grain in 2022, operates in an industry that has seen broad price-fixing litigation, and Cargill's commodity trading practices have drawn regulatory attention in several jurisdictions over its history. In late 2024 the company announced plans to cut about 8,000 jobs globally as part of its reorganization.

Cargill Ownership: Pros & Cons

Advantages

+Family ownership enables multi-decade investment horizons without quarterly earnings pressure
+Integrated supply chain from farm origination to finished ingredients reduces supply risk for customers
+Scale across 70 countries provides sourcing flexibility during regional crop failures or trade disruptions
+No public market scrutiny allows restructuring and divestitures without activist investor interference
+Deep commodity expertise supports specialized ingredient development in starches and texturants

Considerations

-Private status means limited financial disclosure, reducing transparency for customers and stakeholders
-Concentrated family control limits external accountability on environmental and labor issues
-Exposure to commodity price volatility affects revenue stability, as shown by the $23 billion decline from fiscal 2023 to 2025
-Scale in agricultural markets attracts antitrust and market-concentration scrutiny
-Ongoing deforestation criticism in soy and cattle supply chains creates reputational and regulatory risk

Frequently Asked Questions About Cargill

Sources & Further Reading

Competitors to Cargill

These competing brands operate in the same categories and provide similar products or services. Compare key attributes to understand market positioning and competitive landscape.

Brand	Parent Company	Country	Founded	Market Position	Primary Market	Gender Target
ADM	Adm	USA	1902	Mass market	Global	All Genders
Avebe	Avebe	Netherlands	1919	Mass market	Global	All Genders
Penford	Ingredion	USA	1921	Premium	Global	All Genders
Roquette	Roquette	France	1933	Mass market	Global	All Genders
Tate & Lyle	Tate Lyle	United Kingdom	1921	Mass market	Global	All Genders