According to the St. Louis Business Journal, Prairie Farms is one of the top privately owned businesses in the the U.S. They had a 2015 revenue of $2.76 billion and are a staple of the Carlinville community. Carlinville has been the corporate headquarters of Prairie Farms since 1947. However, next year they are set to move Edwardsville. According to Prairie Farms CEO and Executive Vice President Ed Mullins, this will not affect Carlinville’s milk processing plant and it will continue to operate with no changes. All corporate employees in all Prairie Farms locations have been offered the opportunity to keep their positions at the new corporate headquarters, with no one losing their jobs.
In a recent interview with the Macoupin County Enquirer~Democrat, Mullins said, “Prairie Farms currently has corporate employees in four different metropolitan St. Louis area locations in addition to Carlinville.The new office building would allow us to consolidate Carlinville and our other corporate offices into one location. This will improve the communication and coordination among all of our departments, which will enable us to meet the needs of our customers and position our company for continued long-term growth.” According to their website, Prairie Farms own 24 plants and 13 joint venture plants throughout the Midwest and Mid-South.
“Only the corporate is moving to Edwardsville. Carlinville is still their fifth largest production site, so they aren’t planning on leaving,” said Carlinville Mayor Deanna Demuzio. “They use a lot of water daily… so that is one of our main incentives to get Carlinville’s water fixed.”
Local businessman J.R. Levora thinks that corporate leaving will have a larger effect than Demuzio believes. “People are saying, ‘well they’re still gonna live here,’ some of them will… but when people and jobs leave the community you don’t just lose that job,” said Levora. “You lose them going to lunch at the Refuge or The Wood Duck… I talked to a local business owner who plans to lose at his business, in just the Monday through Friday lunch crowd at least six to $8000 annually, just from losing Prairie Farms. Levora continued, “If that owner loses all this money, at what point does he have to lay someone off?”
The move hasn’t happened yet but it is estimated that the Edwardsville facility will be completed this August. It remains to be seen how losing the Prairie Farms’ corporate headquarters will affect Carlinville.