Darigold and its 466 Northwest dairy-farmer owners are embarking on a second century in business with a new export strategy that has the cooperative — one of Washington’s largest private companies, handling the state’s second most valuable agricultural product — aiming to sell more than half of its output abroad.
The strategy includes a nearly $100 million upgrade to its flagship plant and new sales offices in Mexico and Asia, targeting the appetites of a growing global middle class. But it is ramping up just as a U.S.-instigated trade war has started to take a toll.
Retaliatory tariffs imposed by Mexico and China, a response to the Trump administration’s protectionist trade policies, have disrupted the dairy business, already struggling with a prolonged period of low prices and weak U.S. demand.
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