The Archer Daniels Midland Company , based in Decatur, Illinois, calls itself "supermarket to the world" and operates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into numerous products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed markets worldwide.

ADM also provides agricultural storage and transportation services. Company divisions include: ADM Cocoa, ADM Corn Processing, ADM Food Additives, ADM Lecithin, ADM Milling, ADM Monoglycerides , ADM Vitamin E, ADM Protein Specialties, ADM Food Oils. ADM's revenues for fiscal 2003 (ending June 30, 2003) were US $30.708 B.

Products

Typical products include oils and meal from soybeans, cottonseed, sunflower seeds, canola, peanuts, flaxseed and corn germ , syrup, starch, glucose, dextrose, crystalline dextrose, high-fructose sweeteners, ethyl alcohol, and wheat flour. End uses are consumption by people and livestock, and fuel additives.

Corporate governance

In 1996, ADM was the subject of the largest price fixing investigation in history. Senior ADM executives were indicted on criminal charges for engaging in price-fixing in the international lysine market, and the company was fined $100 million, the largest antitrust fine ever. [1]

ADM has been criticized for having a board of directors that does not serve stockholder interests. Business Week has singled ADM out as being one of the worst-governed corporations in the US for three years in a row: 1998, 1999 and 2000. Specifically, the publication charged, ADM had a board packed full of management's incompetent cronies.

Public relations

ADM has been energetically attempting to improve its image in the public eye. It provides substantial financial support for public broadcasting in the US, and also advertises extensively, in a way that seems unusual for a company whose products are used exclusively by other corporations.

Text of radio ad in US in 2003: "What if the world were one gigantic farm field? When crops grow where they grow best, we improve agricultural efficiency, make food more affordable, and feed a hungry world."

References

• Company website
• The Informant: A True Story, by Kurt Eichenwald . ISBN 0767903277.