Cheese Salt (Food-Grade Sodium Chloride)

Largest privately held company in the US by revenue (~$160B in FY2024). Cargill Protein – North America processes beef and pork with major plants at Dodge City KS (one of the world's largest beef plants), Schuyler NE (4,800 cattle/day, 2.7M lbs/day), Wichita KS (beef). ~22% of US beef packing (mid-2000s estimate; current share may be slightly lower). Also a major agricultural commodity trader, animal feed maker, and food ingredient supplier. Cargill's private structure means no public financial disclosure — making supply chain risk assessment harder. The Cargill family holds the majority of shares, making it the wealthiest private US company.

US minerals company operating Patience Lake Mine (near Saskatoon, Saskatchewan) — a solution potash mine using brine pumped from the Devonian Prairie Evaporite Formation. Patience Lake is one of Saskatchewan's three operating solution mines. Also operates Cote Blanche salt mine (Louisiana), Ogden salt operation (Utah), and is a major North American highway de-icing salt producer. Compass Minerals' Patience Lake operation is smaller scale than Nutrien or Mosaic; the company has faced capital allocation pressures around its Saskatchewan potash asset.

German potash and salt producer; operates mines in Germany (Werra, Weser, Harz) and Canada (Bethune mine, Saskatchewan); ~7% of global potash; only Western European potash producer; operates under EU environmental constraints; Bethune mine opened 2017 as first new greenfield potash mine in Canada in decades