In this installment of "Western Michigan at work," Dr. Willis Dunbar visits the Hamilton Farm Bureau, which claims to be the largest local farm cooperative in the United States. Dunbar describes the gradual expansion of the cooperative into a multi-million dollar industry as it acquired a saw mill, a poultry dressing plant, and a hardware store while expanding the variety of products it provided and improving their quality. Dr. Dunbar focuses on describing the egg production and processing, which forms the backbone of the cooperative, explaining the importance of the 1932 expansion which added cold storage to the plant and the switch to a more controlled environment for raising chickens, all of which led to Hamilton being known for their quality throughout the Midwest.
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