5/20/2015 10:51:00 AM Cookie production has long history in Ripon This is how the Ripon Good Cookie factory appeared in September 1963, before several new additions, and while it still was owned by the Bumby family. This is how the Ripon Good Cookie factory appeared in September 1963, before several new additions, and while it still was owned by the Bumby family. Tim Lyke Publisher For 85 years — since Horace Bumby and 25 employees started a cookie company with a single oven — Ripon has been known for being Cookietown. That identifier has been a point of pride for the community, providing workers and their families with a steady income, giving Ripon its No. 1 tourist attraction (traffic to the outlet store far outpaces visitors to the Little White Schoolhouse), accounting for other Ripon firms that manufacture wafers and plastic containers, and leading to a family friendly community festival that began a quarter century ago after Ripon residents baked the “world’s largest cookie” featured on the cover of the “Guinness Book of Records.” When the wind blows from the north, the city even smells like cookies. But that history will draw to an end with ConAgra’s decision, announced Monday, to close the cookie-manufacturing plant off Oshkosh Street. Here is a timeline of significant milestones in the history of what started in 1930 as Ripon Foods: 1930 — Horace A. Bumby establishes Ripon Foods Inc. with a single oven and 25 employees. 1977 — Heritage Wafers is incorporated and begins operations in January 1978 with 17 employees. 1983 — Ripon Foods buys Heritage Wafers, Ltd., adding surgar wafers to the 40 kinds of cookies it manufactures. It operates the company as a wholly owned subsidiary. 1986 — Ed Bumby succeeds his father John Bumby as the company’s president and CEO. 1999 — St. Louis based Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. agrees to buy Ripon Foods and operate it within its consumer foods subsidiary, Bremner, which manufactures crackers, cookies, snack nuts, mayonnaise and salad dressings. 2012 — ConAgra Foods, Inc. completes its acquisition of Ralcorp Holdings, Inc. With 36,000 employees and sales of approximately $18 billion annually, the combined company is one of the largest packaged food companies in North America. ConAgra CEO Gary Rodkin says the acquisition “reinforces and accelerates our ‘Recipe for Growth’ strategy, which also includes growth in our core business and adjacencies, and expansion internationally.” 2015 — ConAgra tells employees at its Ripon facility that it plans to close its west plant, which manufactures cookies, while leaving the east, wafer-making plant, open. More than 300 employees will lose their jobs.