A Plea for Top 100 Company Information

I want to use my blog this week to ask your help in assembling our Top 100© list of the largest food & beverage processors in the U.S. and Canada.

We have our list from last year. That's obviously our starting point. And we notice throughout the year the companies that fall off the list or have grown enough to make the list. The bottom rung will probably be around $600 million in annual sales.

But that doesn't mean we're not capable of missing a few. Especially you private companies. If you see the value in identifying yourself as a leader in the food & beverage manufacturing industry, then stand up and be counted (or sit down and email me).

We definitely need a sales figure for calendar 2012 or your most recent fiscal year. We won't ask about net income, although that's an important figure we carry from all the public companies. Our list is based on "North American-produced, value-added, self-manufactured" food products. A lot of qualifiers, I know. But we want this list to represent the true manufacturers of foods and beverages in the U.S. and Canada, not merely marketers or importers.

While only the list and an accompanying story make it into our August print magazine, we carry online profiles of all 100 companies. It really is a nifty little tool. See it at:
http://www.foodprocessing.com/top100/index.html
The list appears in descending order by 2011 (for now) sales, but you can sort any column – create an alphabetic list, a list based on highest profits, one based on last year's sales. And all the names are hotlinked, so click on PepsiCo and you'll get the company's address and phone number, but also all the key executives, divisions or business units and even all the brands they own.

Do you belong on this list? If you think so, email me at [email protected].