Industry Food | Founder Harvey Perley Hood | |
Parent organization Catamount Dairy Holdings Limited Partnership Subsidiaries Crowley Foods, Brigham's Ice Cream, Booth Brothers' Dairy Inc., La Terra Fina USA, Inc. Profiles | ||
Lynne bohan hp hood
HP Hood LLC is an American dairy company based in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. Hood was founded in 1846 in Charlestown, Massachusetts by Harvey Perley Hood. Recent company acquisitions by HP Hood have expanded its reach from predominantly New England to the broader United States. Today, the company has an annual sales revenue of about $2.2 billion.
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From 1980 to 1996, HP Hood was owned by Agway. That year, the company was acquired by current CEO John A. Kaneb. HP Hood operates as a subsidiary of Catamount Dairy Holdings LP, based in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Acquisitions
In 2004, the company acquired Crowley Foods, based in Binghamton, New York; and Kemps Foods, based in St. Paul, Minnesota. In 2007, HP Hood acquired Crystal Cream and Butter Company, based in Sacramento, California, shortly selling it to Foster Farms Dairy. In 2008, they acquired the ice cream business of Brigham's Ice Cream, based in Arlington, Massachusetts. These acquisitions effectively expanded the company's reach from New England and New York to the broader United States.
Current brands
Note: A news source from Binghamton, New York mentions that Balford Farms of Burlington, New Jersey purchased the rights to Crowley Foods in 2014. Another source states that Balford Farms is a part-owner, having only a portion of the assets. According to the history section on the Crowley Foods website, as of 2015, it mentions that their products are still part of the HP Hood line of brands. Balford Farms took over the former Binghamton warehouse and distribution center for Crowley Foods in 2014.
Former brands
Iconography
HP Hood is a New England icon and their name and logo are well known. While Hood no longer produces milk at their facility along Interstate 93 in Charlestown, they do conduct all their research and development there and the building is still referred to as "the Hood plant" by traffic reporters. The company ran a highway safety campaign called Hood Samaritan (see Good Samaritan) circa 1960, that was later taken over by the CVS Pharmacy chain.
At Boston Children's Museum, the outdoor ice cream stand takes the form of a large Hood Milk Bottle. The Hood blimp often appears at sport and cultural events (most often Red Sox home games above Boston, and the Eastern States Exposition in October). The Hood blimp made news on September 26, 2006 when it crashed in a wooded area near Manchester-by-the-Sea, Massachusetts.
The Hoodsie cup, a small cardboard cup of ice cream, is an iconic product; the term "Hoodsie" is occasionally cited as a shibboleth of the Boston-area dialect.
A United States Supreme Court case, H.P. Hood and Sons v. DuMond, was decided in the Hood Company's favor, in which New York was prevented from withholding a license to sell milk made in New York in Massachusetts, based on the dormant commerce clause limitations on state intervention in interstate commerce.
The company and their logo served as somewhat of an inspiration to the popular Phish tune "Harry Hood".