Agway

[sdc eastern ia]

OT A question for you Northeastern guys. What really happened to the Agways. They were a large outfit. I used to have some contacts at the plants but we lost track years ago.

 

[Bob Bancroft]

In general terms, I would say kind of ENRON like. There is a large, I think now apartment, building on South hill in Ithaca I drive by every week, that I was told was Agways predecessors HQ- GLF( Grange League Federation)
That apparently wasn't good enough. Agway literally built an ivory tower up around Syracuse where all the money flowed to. At the same time, local stores/mills were operating with aging, inadequate ,antiquated facilities. Near the end,(and maybe it was going on earlier),some at the tower got in serious trouble for crooked trading.
And, get this! I believe they were the single largest fuel/energy supplier in the northeast, and they bungled that too.

 

[showcrop]

I don't know much but friends and relatives that had Agway stores joined into some sort of a class action lawsuit. I believe that it was to enable them to continue to use the Agway name even though there is no longer an Agway organization. Many still have the Agway name out front.

 

[LMD]

Still have an Agway store near me. Owned by a local family. Pretty sure its just an independent store just using the Agway name. Been there as long as I can remember.

 

[Matt from CT]

The Agway retail is now just a brand-name owned by Southern States Co-op. I believe all the Agway stores are independently owned.

As one of the other posters alluded to with the Ivory Tower comment, my basic understanding is the management just milked it for cash flow -- hardly ever issued rebates, the co-op owners never collectively pushed for accountability, so they kept expanding business without reinvesting in what they already had. Just threw a heck of a party once a year to tell everyone how great they were doing.

Add to it the general decline in agriculture in the northeast, eventually the music stopped and there wasn't enough chairs for everyone to sit down.