In 1903, fourteen of Le Sueur's leading businessmen met in the back of the Cosgrove Harness Shop to start the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, selling sixty-seven shares of stock at one hundred dollars per share to raise enough money for one kettle, seed, sugar, salt, and cans. Corn arrived from the fields by horse-drawn wagons, and women husked it by hand for three cents per bushel. In its first year, the company sold eleven thousand seven hundred cases of white cream style corn, earning enough profit to buy two more kettles. The business continued to grow, beginning to can peas under the Blue and Gold label in 1907, adding the Green Giant brand of peas in 1925, and introducing vacuum packed Niblet brand yellow whole kernel corn in 1929. Although it expanded by packing a variety of vegetables and opening canning facilities throughout the United States, only corn and peas were ever canned in Le Sueur. In the early 1940s during World War II, labor shortages caused by local men entering military service led to laborers from Mexico and Jamaica and German prisoners of war being assigned to help harvest vital food crops. In 1950, the Minnesota Valley Canning Company became the Green Giant Company. In 1978, a year before Pillsbury acquired it, national sales exceeded $485 million and net earnings exceeded $10 million. Over the years, the company directly contributed to the positive growth and development of the City of Le Sueur, and the Le Sueur plant closed in 1995.