NEW HAMPTON — Farmers Win and Five Star are continuing to pursue merging into a combined cooperative.

In February 2020, both boards of directors signed a letter of intent to begin the study of a potential merger known as “Due Diligence.” At that time, employee teams from both cooperatives formed seven research teams tasked with investigating the potential synergies as well as risks. Employee teams reported those findings to the joint board, after which each Board of Directors approved the signing of the Definitive Agreement.

Something neither cooperative board was anticipating in this process was a global pandemic and the challenges it created. This made it difficult to stay on the pace that was originally projected.

“Our goal in facing this situation was twofold: protect our employees’ and communities’ health as best we can, and secondly to continue to operate your cooperatives in a manner that best serves your needs in this ever-changing business climate. Reporting the results of the employee teams was very difficult as we believed that being in person was beneficial for this decision,” said Ken Smith, CEO/general manager for Five Star Cooperative.

“Due Diligence is a critical component of the process. It helps identify the true benefits for our members as well as our employee teams,” said Trent Sprecker, general manager of Farmers Win Co-op. “For this reason, we continued the collaboration throughout 2020 with the boards and employees. I believe we benefited from this additional time.”

With the Due Diligence study completed, the next step was for the employee teams to share their findings. Each team assessed all aspects of their current departments and compared processes with the other cooperative while maintaining the highest level of confidentiality.