Blas, Meyer

Cargill is one of the hidden companies of the global economy. As the world’s agribusiness leader, it sits at the nexus of one of the world’s biggest and most critical industries – a force of great importance to millions of farmers as well as to large food multinationals from Nestlé to Coca-Cola and Kraft, though it is much less well-known as a name. Its significance – as the equivalent of ExxonMobil for the agriculture markets – is set to increase further as food demand rises in China, India and in parts of the developing world, and the use of biofuels grows in the west...

...the past three years are shaping up to be the best in Cargill’s 145-year history. Helped by the new “farm to fork” approach, the group is set to earn almost $10bn in the 2008-10 period, up from $1.5bn in 1998-2000 when the shake-up, called “strategic intent 2010”, was launched.

With nearly $117bn in revenues last year and 138,000 employees based in 67 countries, Cargill also ranks as America’s biggest privately owned company...