An Ohio Family Farm Grows into a Global Operation

Way back in 1938, Virgil Cooper founded his family farm. Originally boasting 300 turkeys, Virgil sold mostly to friends and neighbors around the holidays. In 1945, Virgil moved the farm to Oakwood, Ohio, where the flock grew to more than 10,000. In the 1970s, he brought his children Jim, Dianne, and Gary, into the fold full-time, with their sights set on expansion.

“It’s your baby now,” Virgil told them. “You figure it out.” So that’s exactly what they did.

In the years since, Cooper’s children have transformed Cooper Farms into a major farm-to-fork operation that serves a global market. And it’s not just about turkey anymore, either. Cooper Farms has grown into a remarkable company, adding hogs, layer chickens, and a feed operation to support their livestock. The Cooper Farms product offerings now include commodity meat, private label meats, and graded eggs. In 2022 alone, they provided more than 53 million pounds of meat and eggs to grocery store chains and other customers all around the world.

And they’ve done it all from right here in Ohio.

“From the local government and general business climate of the state, to being able to reach half the American population within an overnight drive from our locations,” says Gary Cooper, Chief Operating Officer, “Ohio has always been a win-win for us.” Gary notes that these Ohio advantages are something that colleagues in other states like Florida and California don’t enjoy.

In fact, Cooper Farms has brought Ohio turkeys to the national stage. In 1996 and again in 2014, Cooper Farms-raised turkeys received ceremonial presidential pardons at the National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, held at the White House in Washington, D.C.

As their operation has scaled up, Cooper Farms has made a concerted effort to keep sustainability top of mind. “About 10 years ago, we put in three wind turbines that produce about 70% of the electricity for one of our plants,” Gary says. They’ve also added solar arrays, planted grass to mitigate runoff, and they use 85 percent of the manure their livestock produce on their own fields, while selling the remainder to neighboring farms. 700 acres of the land they own are conserved as untouched forest. “We don’t even log the trees out of them. We just like to keep it growing.”

When it comes to animal health and safety, Cooper Farms continues to innovate, with four full-time veterinarians on staff. Recently, they invested in facilities for their chickens that buck the industry standard of keeping them in cages and instead let them roam inside an aviary-style enclosure. And they’re hyper-vigilant about preventing disease. In fact, the company has many strict biosecurity measures in place, including sanitizing waste stations, and animal facilities that require staff to shower just before entering and leaving.

Family means something more at Cooper Farms. While Cooper Farms is a family-owned business – with a fourth generation of Coopers now working for the company – they consider all their team members family. “We think of our 2,425 team members as working with us, not for us,” says Gary. “We have a lot of people that have been with us for three or four decades, and a few multigenerational families that aren’t Coopers.”

With increased demand and consistent growth, Cooper Farms has made several significant investments in the farm and its various facilities throughout the state. To support some of these investments, Cooper Farms has partnered with JobsOhio for funding. The JobsOhio grants have helped the business to expand operations and distribution facilities and to upgrade technology and equipment.

Ohio and its workforce will continue to support Cooper Farms as it expands into the future, with its plans to increase production in areas like deli meat production and liquid eggs.

“Growing here in the heart of America has worked well for us,” Gary shares. “We’re excited about what the future holds.”

If your company is looking to grow its operations, reach out to JobsOhio's Tim Derickson to discuss how we can help.