Dive Brief:

• ConAgra Foods, Cargill Inc., and CHS will be allowed to merge flour-milling operations to create a new company called Ardent Mills. 
• The Justice Department issued a ruling yesterday that the merger can move forward now that the companies have agreed to sell four mills to Japan's Nisshin Flour Milling Inc.
• Ardent Mills unites the milling operations of Horizon Milling -- the joint venture between Cargill and CHS that is already the largest miller in the U.S., with the milling operations of ConAgra, which is the third-largest miller in the nation. 

Dive Insight:

The big loser in this deal is clearly Archer Daniels Midland, which remains stuck in second place among the country's milling operations, but now faces a much tougher competitor in Ardent Mills.