Gaylord boxes in Hennepin County

Hennepin is the metro's centre of gravity. It holds Minneapolis, the biggest city in the state, and 68 ZIP codes, more than any other county the desk covers. Medical devices, corporate headquarters, food and electronics sit alongside distribution on its ring roads.

Hennepin gives the desk the widest spread of requests in one county: a device maker asking for a dozen clean Grade A boxes, a food plant asking for dry ingredient boxes, a retailer asking for a pallet-sized run for a seasonal return. With 68 ZIP codes, the ZIP on the request matters more here than anywhere, because a downtown loading dock and a ring-road warehouse are not the same delivery.

Hennepin County at a glance

Hennepin County's page gives 1,281,565 people at the 2020 census over 607 square miles, 53 of them water. Its largest industries by the 2016 American Community Survey are healthcare and social assistance with 96,511 workers, manufacturing with 80,324 and retail trade with 75,861. The page lists employers including the University of Minnesota at 18,000 and Target at 10,000, without a year for the figures.

Roads named include Interstates 35W, 94, 394, 494 and 694, U.S. 12, 52, 169 and 212, and a long list of state highways. Minneapolis-Saint Paul International is described as the 17th-busiest U.S. airport by passengers and a Delta hub, and Crystal and Flying Cloud serve smaller aircraft.

Getting around Hennepin

Interstates 94, 394, 494 and 35W cross the county, with US 169 and US 12, and I-694 starts at its northern edge.

Hennepin towns

Across Hennepin's towns the trades that show most often are food and ingredients (6), industrial and metal products (6), medical devices (5) and electronics and instruments (4). The largest towns are Minneapolis, Bloomington and Brooklyn Park.

Bloomington

Population 88,344 (Census estimate, July 2024). Toro 1,150 and Donaldson 1,126 staff in the 2023 city report.

Bloomington has more than 100,000 jobs and nearly 8,000 hotel rooms. Its top employers in the city's 2023 financial report are led by Mall of America tenants (11,000), HealthPartners (3,533) and the school district (1,950), followed by Seagate Technology (1,365), Toro (1,150), Donaldson Company (1,126), General Dynamics (775) and others. Headquarters it lists include Donaldson, Toro, Thermo King and Dairy Queen.

Brooklyn Park

Population 82,893 (Census estimate, July 2024). Manufacturing is the largest employer sector, with 8,238 of the city's 33,176 jobs in 2023.

Brooklyn Park had 33,176 jobs in 2023, with manufacturing the largest sector at 8,238 (24.83%), then health care and social assistance at 4,810 and retail at 3,513. Wholesale trade accounts for 1,564 jobs and transportation and warehousing for 1,538. A quarter of employment in manufacturing is unusual for a suburb, and it is the clearest local reason boxes move here.

Plymouth

Population 78,551 (Census estimate, July 2024). A medtech and distribution suburb on the I-494 ring.

Corporate headquarters in Plymouth include OneBeacon, Select Comfort, Christopher & Banks and Tonka Water. Its principal employers in the 2023 financial report include Zayo Group (3,500), the Wayzata school district (2,529), Medtronic (1,168), US Foods (700), TURCK Inc. (300) and Polaris (300). A foodservice distributor and a sensor maker appearing in the same list shows the mix: warehousing and light manufacturing alongside offices.

Maple Grove

Population 72,739 (Census estimate, July 2024). Boston Scientific's regional R&D and manufacturing site is the largest employer.

Boston Scientific operates a regional research, development and manufacturing facility employing over 3,000 people in Maple Grove, and Nortech Systems and the school district are among other major employers. Great River Energy's headquarters sits in the Fountains at Arbor Lakes development.

Eden Prairie

Population 62,905 (Census estimate, July 2024). Optum (6,500), C.H. Robinson (2,500) and Starkey Labs (2,117) head the chamber's employer list.

Eden Prairie has more than 2,800 businesses, including many in logistics and distribution, retail and wholesale trade, health care, industrial equipment and communications. Headquarters listed include SuperValu, C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Winnebago Industries, Starkey Hearing Technologies, Lifetouch and MTS Systems. Its 2024 Economic Development Snapshot puts Optum at 6,500 jobs, C.H. Robinson at 2,500, Starkey Labs at 2,117 and UNFI at 1,600.

Golden Valley

Population 21,263 (Census estimate, July 2024). General Mills' headquarters campus.

More than 30,000 people work in Golden Valley, against a population of about 22,000. Its 2023 top-employer list is led by General Mills (3,100, 9.0%), Allianz Life (2,000) and Honeywell (2,000), followed by Lubrication Technologies (750), M.A. Mortenson Company (575) and G.H. Tennant Company (466), the cleaning-products maker. Pentair is listed with its U.S. headquarters here.

Minnetonka

Population 52,651 (Census estimate, July 2024). Cargill's headquarters carries a Wayzata postal address.

Minnetonka is home to the headquarters of Cargill, the top private US firm by revenue, founded in 1865, with Carlson, UnitedHealth Group, Digital River, Radisson Hotel Group, AmeriPride Services and G&K Services. Its 2024 financial report lists UnitedHealth Group (4,200), Carlson Holdings (3,600), Medica Health Plans (2,800) and Veolia WTS Solutions USA (300) among top employers.

St. Louis Park

Population 49,899 (Census estimate, July 2024). Nordic Ware makes cookware here.

St. Louis Park has over 2,700 businesses, among them Travelers Express/MoneyGram (450 employees), Benilde-St. Margaret's School (200) and Nordic Ware, the household cooking equipment maker (135), and says Bridgewater Bank is headquartered here. The city gets its name from the Minneapolis and St. Louis Railway, and around 1890 the village had more than 600 industrial jobs, mostly at the Moline Plow Company factory.

Brooklyn Center

Medtronic's PROMEON division is the top employer, with 1,100 employees in 2022.

PROMEON, a division of Medtronic, was Brooklyn Center's top employer in the city's 2022 report at 1,100 employees (7.65%), followed by Luther Auto Group (555), the city (398) and the school district (396). Caribou Coffee's headquarters (240) and Cass Screw Machine Products (124) appear lower in the list, along with Surly Brewing Company in the page's notable-business note.

A request from the biggest county

Hennepin's size works against you in one way: a ZIP code can cover very different docks. Add a cross street and say whether the dock is on the ground or raised.

Two kinds of Hennepin buyer

Hennepin buyers split into those who need a few boxes quickly, for a bench, a showroom or a short project, and those who run a line and need a steady supply. The first group should lead with the date. The second should lead with the monthly count.

Finding your town in the ledger

A ledger of 68 ZIP codes is long enough that a reader looking for a single town can lose it. Use the towns table for the larger places, each of which has its own section below, and the ZIP list for the rest.

The ring roads and the river

The ring of interstates through Hennepin, with the Mississippi on its eastern edge, shapes where boxes move. The county's industrial space clusters along the ring and the river, and its offices cluster downtown and along the southwest corridor. A box buyer in a southwest office park and one in a northern industrial park are in the same county but ask different questions.

Sixty-eight ZIP codes

Sixty-eight ZIP codes is more than any other county on the desk and says something about the county: it is densely settled, with many small centres. A ZIP is a mail delivery area, not a dock, so two requests from the same ZIP can describe very different buildings. The fix is detail: street, door type and hours.

Population figures for the county's towns are Census estimates for July 2024. Employer lists date from the years shown, so treat the ledger as a guide to what a place is known for, not as a census of its buildings.

Minneapolis, Bloomington, Plymouth, Maple Grove and the other Hennepin towns with pages are listed in the ledger, each with the trades sources give it, and the county notes above apply to all of them.

Questions, answered