ForFarmers

The story of ForFarmers begins not in a boardroom, but in the Dutch countryside in 1896. A group of farmers, including the visionary Jan van den Heuvel, decided to band together. They formed a cooperative with a straightforward goal: purchase and produce animal feed more efficiently and at a lower cost for its members. This collective approach was the foundation of what would become a major player in European agriculture. For decades, the cooperative, known as Coöperatieve Landbouwersbank en Handelsvereniging, grew steadily by serving its farmer members. The real inflection point came much later. In the 2000s, the organization, now operating under the name ForFarmers, began a series of strategic acquisitions, expanding its footprint beyond the Netherlands into Germany, Belgium, and the United Kingdom. This transformed the local cooperative into an international feed company. A pivotal chapter in the company's history was written in 2016. ForFarmers took the significant step of listing on the Euronext Amsterdam stock exchange. This Initial Public Offering marked its transition from a private cooperative to a publicly-traded company. The move was designed to provide access to capital for further growth and to offer liquidity to its member-shareholders. Today, ForFarmers stands as a testament to the power of cooperative roots evolving to meet the demands of the modern, international agricultural market.