Sunkist Growers, Incorporated is an American citrus growers' non-stock membership cooperative composed of 6,000 members from California and Arizona. It is currently headquartered in Valencia, California. Through 31 offices in the United States and Canada and four offices outside North America, its sales in 1991 totaled $956 million. It is the largest fresh produce shipper in the United States, the most diversified citrus processing and marketing operation in the world, and one of California's largest landowners. History In the late 1880s, California citrus growers began organizing themselves into cooperatives, with the goal of increasing profits by pooling their risk and increasing their collective bargaining power with jobbers and packers. The economic depression that began in 1893 worsened farmers' situations, and intensified their desire to self-organize to their own benefit. In 1893, P.J. Dreher and his son, the "father of the California citrus industry" Edward L. Dreher (1877–1964), and several other prominent citrus farmers and land owners formed the Southern California Fruit Exchange in Claremont, a small college town near Los Angeles. It originally represented only growers of oranges: in 1896 lemon growers joined as well. The exchange initially included growers from Los Angeles County, Orange County, and Riverside County, and later expanded to growers and groves in San Bernardino County and Ventura County. By 1905, the group represented 5,000 members, 45% of the California citrus industry, and renamed itself the California Fruit Growers Exchange. In 1952, it changed its name to Sunkist Growers, Inc. Organizational structure Sunkist has three levels of organizational hierarchy: local, district, and central associations. Individual growers belong to a local organization; local organizations belong to a district organization, and district organizations belong to a central organization. The main purpose of the cooperative is to create systems enabling fruit from multiple growers to be efficiently harvested, sorted into various sizes and grades, and packed and shipped across the United States, in response to shifting demand. Since inception, the organization has significantly expanded its activities. In 1906, the CFGE launched the Citrus Protective League, a lobbying arm. In 1907, it formed the Fruit Growers Supply Company to supply growers with materials such as radios, tires, shooks for fruit crates, insecticides, and fertilizers at wholesale prices. It later formed the Sunkist's Exchange By-Products Company, which developed markets for products such as citric acid, sodium citrate, lemon oil, pectin, orange oil and orange pulp. The Sunkist brand In its early