Boulder’s U.S.-leading food scene again on display at 12th annual Pitch Slam & Awards

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“We should expect more from an ice-cream sandwich.” — Pete Bredemann, founder, PeteyBird Ice Cream Sandwiches

America’s food revolution rolls on in Boulder, Colorado, where natural products enthusiasts convened last to week to parse, among other things, the metaphysical state of ice cream snacks.

Of course, there were more tangible outcomes for the 25 natural food and product innovators competing at Naturally Boulder’s 12th annual Pitch Slam & Autumn Awards, such as coveted booth space at Expo West, business consulting and a higher profile that boosts the early-stage companies pitching to judges and enthusiastic supporters. As I wrote last year, the event has become a spectacular showcase of innovation and entrepreneurship — a window into a movement and industry that’s profoundly changed Colorado’s economy and for consumers nationwide, the way we develop product and food concepts and make and distribute what we eat.

As impressed as I was last year, the crop of companies pitching this year was even stronger in my view, with great products but equally, very capable entrepreneurs. The business acumen of this group was off the charts.

Naturally Boulder again demonstrated why it’s among the most influential and productive trade organizations in America. I hooked up after the event with Bill Capsalis, past board president and early mover in standing up NB, to assess what we witnessed at the 12th annual Pitch Slam.

  • The cross-section of companies was again eye-opening: desserts, pizza doughs, beverages, snacks, soups and broths, dips, and the winner, tooth powder! Capsalis: Innovation is alive and well in the natural products industry in Boulder. Where else could you see vegan sauces and soups being pitched along with toothpaste? The idea that Boulder is the epicenter of the natural products industry, or at least at the center of the food revolution, is turning out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Along with this comes a much more sophisticated entrepreneur; they’re more prepared and savvy than ever.
  • Gluten-free is now a staple, and grain-free is a new trend, but soy-free arrives this year in a big-way. ‘Gluten-, grain-, and, soy-free’ was the common refrain. Soy’s out because of new health concerns, especially for women. The billion-dollar sale of WhiteWave, with the Silk brand at center, came to mind all afternoon. Capsalis: It was almost $1.5 billion! It’s not so much that soy is out, it’s that other products are hotter. Plant-based milks are surging — almond, cashew, and even flax are gaining in popularity. I think the reason the WhiteWave deal is so important is because it shows how multinational corporations are focused on the innovation in the industry now. That’s a big deal and it gives a lot of entrepreneurs encouragement to keep innovating in the food space.
  • Paleo’s refinement represents huge opportunity. I’ve been paleo-plus-beer (who can live without beer?) for about six months and it’s hard to replace dietary staples like bread and muffins. But relief for grain-free products has arrived in a big way with the growing popularity of alternative flours made with almonds, chickpeas, and the like. Innovation in non-dairy dips and spreads was also on display. Flavorful, cheesy-tasting, vegan-based spreads from The Honest Stand and Let Thy Food were a hit. Fats are also back — FatWorks — in keeping with the paleo push. Capsalis: My favorite part of the Paleo movement is how so many things fit under the category! As long as you leave out the grains, sugars, and dairy, it’s Paleo! Beyond Paleo what we see happening now is a return to healthy fats like ghee and tallow. The Fatworks people are onto a culinary trend I think. I’m vegan so it doesn’t interest me, but I’m all for using every part of the animal, so bring on the fat.

  • “Boy, am I tired of energy bars,” opined Matt Oscamou, co-founder of Frontier Snacks. I was surprised his company didn’t make the finals. Energy bars seem in a down cycle, the exception this year being Evo, makers of a hemp bar and a business that’s already booming (profiled in CompanyWeek). Capsalis: It’s true there are a lot of bars out there. I think consumers respond well to high-protein, low-calorie items they can grab and eat on the go. Now they’re demanding actual real food in those bars. The challenge seems to be at the retail level: What does the store do with all of them?
  • I’ve the made the case for three years that manufacturing innovation has been a critical ingredient to industry growth in Colorado, and the impact of Colorado’s network of co-packers was an understated theme. Manufacturing challenges were less a topic this year than last, testament to expanding infrastructure including a growing network of available commercial kitchens along the Front Range. Brands and products may have been the highlight, but manufacturing assets are the ingredient that truly sets this region apart. Capsalis: This is right on, Bart! Every food brand I know has to start making their products somewhere and they all need to scale. Excellent manufacturing facilities make this a reality in our state. Without these facilities and expertise, we would not have the innovation that we do. A while back, you profiled the company that connects open kitchens with food makers [Food Corridor], a fabulous concept that pushes Colorado even further. We have some of the finest co-packers in the country located in Colorado.
  • A powerful social mission continues to inform many of the contestants here — it’s in the DNA of this sector — manifest this year in Good Spread, a natural peanut butter made with honey. With so many natural peanut butters on the market today that require a mix with every serving, this product aims squarely at kid’s preference for a creamy, no-stir texture. The corporate mission is to alleviate child mortality with an “every jar feeds a child” credo. It’s a commendable effort to turn a passive consumer to an awake, involved consumer. Capsalis: While mission-based food brands are not new or unique, Good Spread has raised the bar by highlighting malnourished children — a commendable act. Lots of companies want to do good while doing well; we see a lot of examples of this. Evo has re-focused their company around saving family farms by encouraging the growth of organic hemp. It’s brilliant really and not a marketing gimmick — they have locked up 20 percent of the organic hemp production and are creating more products to sell more hemp. Sometimes things just come together in a magical way. These are two great examples of entrepreneurs following their hearts.

  • Finally, the winner was the entertaining Perry Louis Fowler, eponymous owner of Frau Fowler’s Tooth Powder, part of the Tough Love Organics basket of products. Debilitated by a massive infection from having her wisdom teeth removed, Fowler developed a compelling, all-natural powder that, along with Fowler’s eccentric personality, won over the judges and audience alike. Cool stuff. Capsalis: Boy, was I surprised by her win. Personal care products — along with health and beauty products — are going through a lot of transformation these days and it is about time. It’s like the last frontier for innovation. The NB pitch slam exemplifies the awesome desire for entrepreneurs of all types to just go for it. And I love that about the event.

Our coverage of Pitch Slam finalists also includes this week’s profile of LoveTheWild. Stay tuned as we work our way through this incredible list of innovators and entrepreneurs.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

More on CompanyWeek’s most-read content from 2016

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We’ll devote time and energy this fall doing what many of you do — assessing the popularity of our products (in our case, content), determining what’s working and what isn’t, and developing new content that do what most good products do: meet a demand in the marketplace or solve a problem.

Here’s a list of what you liked, the most-visited content pages at www.companyweek.com, January through September this year:

  1. Column: Walmart says no, but rural Colorado’s apparel manufacturing initiative storms ahead
  2. Industry-report: Colorado’s bike manufacturers
  3. Company profile: Kodiak Cakes
  4. Industry category: Food & Beverage
  5. Column: Middle-market companies steal the show at the inaugural Colorado Manufacturing Awards
  6. Industry category: Industrial & Contract Manufacturing
  7. Industry category: Brewing & Beverage
  8. Industry category: Lifestyle
  9. Industry category: Aerospace & Electronics
  10. Industry category: Built Environment

And here’s a couple takeaways:

Manufacturing companies are interested in each other. We organize and archive company profiles by industry type at CompanyWeek, and this list reflects the popularity of those archives. It’s no surprise, really. It’s the only resource of its kind. But the practical takeaway is that many of the early-stage and middle market companies we profile are interested in how others are managing the challenges, needs, and opportunities outlined each week. Plus there’s business to be had in company-to-company connections.

There’s growing interest in a manufacturing resurgence in lifestyle industries. There was obviously the most interest in a good old-fashioned David-and-Goliath story when brawny Walmart tapped Rural Colorado Apparel Manufacturing a finalist for it’s Manufacturing Innovation Fund then rejected it in favor of more academic exercises, like The Science of Making Old Clothes New Again.

RCAM has since been told no again by Walmart, but here’s guessing that it’s only a matter of time before an authentic manufacturer taps the upstart apparel cut-and-sew resource to make garments — utilizing labor sourced from rural America. RCAM is a sleeping giant, either as an entity or as a concept.

The #2 ranked content on the list was first published over a year-and-a-half ago, in June 2015. Our report on Colorado’s bike manufacturer continues to do well in web searches. Interest is high in U.S.-made gear.

Witness the Food & Beverage juggernaut. We’ve documented Colorado’s food and beverage surge — it’s the fastest growing manufacturing sector in the state. Utah’s Kodiak Cakes is the no. 1 read-profile this year, a result in no small part to its legion of fans active on social media.

But F&B has also been the no. 1 category archive destination this year, a trend that should continue as we shine a light on more regional companies driving a revolution in what we eat and how we distribute it.

Industrial manufacturers continue to be the under-publicized bedrock of sector. If others forget about cutters, benders, machinists, and welders, we won’t, and neither will readers or visitors landing at CompanyWeek.com from web searches.

Finally, on the other end of the spectrum, here’s the best column I wrote this year that nobody read. Can’t win ’em all.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Workforce paradox: Automation key to manufacturing job growth

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Even as manufacturing’s percent of U.S. employment lingers around 10 to 12 percent of total employment (and about 9 percent in Utah and Colorado), U.S. manufacturing is alive and well. American industrial output is at an all time high. We’re simply making more, with less. From Vox.com:

Since 1987, US manufacturers have increased their output by 80 percent at the same time as they have reduced their workforce by about 17 percent. In other words, American factories are about twice as efficient today as they were three decades ago. So we’re producing more and more stuff, even as we use fewer and fewer people to do it.

It’s a testament to America’s incredible R&D engine — and entrepreneurial ecosystem that commercializes innovation and technology.

But in the new manufacturing economy, where we make more with fewer employees, we still struggle to develop the right workforce. Today’s manufacturing employees are challenged to learn the skills that match our 21st century industrial makeup: technology-informed and in many cases, skill-sets we stopped teaching decades ago.

This was demonstrated again at last last month’s third annual Apparel + Lifestyle Manufacturing Summit. New cut-and-sew centers are launching in Colorado to meet growing consumer demand for apparel, backpacks, shoes, and other sewn products. Utah’s lifestyle industry boom is also fueling the development of more production businesses. But since we’ve not trained successive generations of pattern-makers, sewers, and finishers, there’s a workforce shortage and no real manual today for workforce development. Who’s an ideal candidate? What’s an appropriate curriculum, and for what equipment?

Even as we find and train workers, one reality is that technology will change everything. As Utah and Colorado look for footing in new (but old) industry sectors like garment manufacturing, technology will shape anew how industry redevelops here. Will the region be home to thousands of new sewers? More likely, based on themes that emerged from the Summit, new production epicenters may look different, featuring more automized systems working in support of smaller, smarter teams — prototyping hubs that enables brands to develop new products and manufacture to test in the field and with new consumers. Volume manufacturing may happen here, or elsewhere.

Consider how this model might proliferate across industries for communities that get it: diversified economies featuring dynamic craft food and beverage sectors that also sustain high-tech agriculture; advanced, agile middle-market manufacturers fabricating refined parts and assemblies; and lifestyle companies prototyping new products here in response to consumer’s preference for all things local. Automated, small-batch manufacturing everywhere.

Here’s a path ahead: Follow the lead of industry and higher-education advocating for fundamental change in how we train a next generation manufacturing workforce — but expand the dialogue into industries not yet party to the conversation. Maker industries that stand to gain from technology and innovation. And feed and incubate early-stage manufacturing companies in these same industries.

We’re destined to make things with fewer employees. But if we expand the breadth of what we make, across industries we’ve forgotten or ignored, we’ll add jobs by breaking down barriers erected in the past couple decades.

With the hammer of American R&D.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at baylor@companyweek.com.

Technician at Boulder's CBDRx

A Trump presidency unnerves cannabis manufacturers. Is it time to change tactics?

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Speculation about the impact of a Trump presidency on U.S. manufacturing has developed along familiar lines, much in keeping with America’s split-personality on the sector. Last week, media surmised that robots will thwart Trumps effort to reshore jobs at the same time his election may discourage the migration of businesses offshore. Midwest manufacturers are “wary of Trump’s free-trade stance” even as the Wall Street Journal reports that manufacturers are mixed on the prospect of a Donald Trump presidency in part because of his ‘protectionist’ rhetoric. So it goes.

Uncertainty and Trump also seem to go together. But here’s what we know: Candidate Trump ran on restoring U.S. manufacturing. And won. The prospects for American manufacturing appear bright.

Colorado’s cannabis manufacturers are probably less assured. Uncertainty has been a constant companion and today, the industry faces the prospect of a Rudy Giuliani or Ted Cruz-led Department of Justice, both of whom have been outspoken in opposing legalization.

I reached out to several of Colorado’s leading cannabis manufacturers to assess what steps industry and elected officials might take to insulate business here from a change-of-opinion at DOJ. The popular sentiment is to continue a ‘wait-and-see’ approach, that with all that’s happening within a new administration, the difficulties involved with unwinding the current hands-off approach and the vote to legalize in four additional states, the rules of engagement shouldn’t change.

Leaving the prospects of a billion-dollar Colorado industry to chance may be the right approach. It’s reasonable to let things play out. But should cannabis leaders and officials elected by the same voters who legalized pot also set in motion a full-throated defense of the industry?

Advocates would do well to publicize the positive impact of legal marijuana on conventional business in the state. They could start with manufacturing.

As President-elect Trump probably understands, creating new manufacturing jobs will pivot on the development of a new domestic supply chain more than legislation that will penalize companies who locate elsewhere, favored Trump campaign rhetoric.

It’s no different here and in Colorado, cannabis farming and production is supporting a wave of new supply-chain companies whose products and services bleed into conventional economy: production supplies including organic soils, lighting hardware, and systems automation; packaging, labeling, and printing including plastic products and fabrication services. Architects and builders are contemplating new facilities. A transportation and logistics network today supports increasingly advanced solutions to bring the industry’s products to market. It’s a long list and getting longer.

Also important is the growing number of capital providers migrating to Colorado and other states with legal marijuana to fund the cannabis industry. Small business requires capital and business services that incubate early-stage companies. Cannabis manufacturing is driving money and expertise into the early-stage ecosystem here and alongside the influx of dollars funding Boulder’s surge in natural food and statewide momentum in craft beverages and other specialized early-stage manufacturing, it’s easy to envision Colorado becoming a financing hub for light manufacturing. Cannabis is a catalyst.

The impact on the labor supply is more mixed. Cannabis complicates efforts of conventional manufacturers in what is already a difficult labor market.

But the jobs paradox that afflicts manufacturing nationally is also at work here: Companies lament a lack of qualified workers, yet point to the loss of manufacturing jobs offshore, or to robots, as the real challenge. Colorado’s manufacturing leaders seem hard at work fixing the workforce challenge. The ‘cannabis contribution’ to new job creation shouldn’t be overlooked.

It still may be a bridge to far for some, but business and policy leaders looking closely will determine that Colorado’s cannabis experiment is today an engine of conventional economic growth.

A rationale to which President-elect Trump can relate.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Contact him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

—

Cannabis profiles and features in CompanyWeek:

CBDRx

Blue Kudu

Industry Report: Cannabis R&D in Colorado

EZTrim

Mary’s Medicinals

Waste Farmers

O.pen Vape

Dixie Elixirs & Edibles

Manufacturing is losing the PR battle. Does it matter?

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Despite the best efforts of candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, manufacturing continues to get killed in the business press. In Monday’s debate, Clinton even used a term endearing to government and policy wonks — “advanced manufacturing” — to promote its importance.

But business media remains generally unimpressed. It’s more popular today for local and national voices to dismiss manufacturing as a relic than view it as integral to the future.

How else to explain the Denver Business Journal releasing its Book of Lists last week without a single manufacturer among the 22 finalists and 11 Power Book winners?

Manufacturing wasn’t even a category. Instead:

The Power Book is an exclusive look at business men and women in 11 industry categories who were prominent in the news over the last year or who, in our judgment, otherwise deserve recognition for recent business accomplishments.”

No manufacturing executives in Colorado deserve recognition? Astonishing.

As head-scratching the DBJ‘s omission, the national media is often more transparent in its anti-manufacturing bias. Here’s Forbes‘ Tim Worstall:

[T]he truth is that manufacturing simply isn’t important as a part of the economy these days. The attention we all pay to it is simply an historical overhang from when it was more important.

Worstall’s anti-manufacturing opinion is one thing. His bias is more problematic when he misleads with statistics. Worstall cites manufacturing’s share of “real GDP’,” arguing that its influence has diminished:

The truth is that manufacturing is only 15% of the entire global economy. And it’s some 12% of the US economy. . . . That is, it’s unimportant.

Was manufacturing “unimportant” in 1960? Quite the contrary. But using Worstall’s statistic of choice, ‘the truth’ is that manufacturing’s 50-year historical average has remained the same:

Manufacturing’s not the employment engine it once was. Today we make more with less workers. It makes manufacturing less important from an employment standpoint. It also makes it an industry in transition.

It should be easy for business media to see past the employment sea change, as dramatic as it is. As we’ve documented, American productivity has never been higher. Candidates running for president would do well to explain why manufacturing is important to the U.S. economy. Here’s a national perspective from Brookings:

  • Americans live and work in a global economy in which we exchange products we produce for those we consume. Manufacturers account for a very large proportion of our ‘tradables.’ If we’re to ever run a trade surplus again, we’ll do so because of manufacturers.
  • A strong domestic manufacturing sector offers a degree of protection from international economic and political disruptions. This is most obvious in the provision of national security, where the risk of a weak manufacturing capability is clear.
  • Manufacturing is often identified as an area in which much of the country’s research and development takes place, but as illustrated by industries such as pharmaceuticals and consumer electronics, manufacturing has become increasingly separate from research and development.
  • The long-term decline in the manufacturing share of employment has meant fewer jobs available at good wages for workers who lack advanced education. The loss of nearly 6 million jobs since 2000 has been damaging to workers who have been laid off, communities that have lost a vital source of employment, and to young workers who have found jobs in the sector.

How long can the list go? Try local reasons:

  • Colorado’s manufacturing sector is driving regional economic growth, through dynamic sectors like food and beverage and advanced fabricating. Visit the grocery store; you’ll see.
  • Consumers want more local and American-made products. If Colorado producers don’t make things for them, manufacturers from other states will.
  • Outdoor recreation, beer and spirits, and apparel are promising new manufacturing industries.

On the eve of the election, consider bias in media and how, if you’re a manufacturer, it matters.

And what you intend to do about it.

Bart Taylor is publisher if CompanyWeek. Reach him at baylor@companyweek.com.

We hope to see you Wednesday afternooon at the third annual Apparel + Lifestyle Manufacturing Summit in Denver to help advance regional manufacturing!

From startup to small batch: when a craft business becomes a manufacturer

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How important is it that we continue to incubate small businesses so they become thriving companies?

Michael Porter, co-chair of the Competitiveness Project and the Harvard Business School, declared on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “We’re stalled in America. Our performance, economic performance, on many metrics is worse than we’ve seen in many generations. I mean not five years. I mean 10, 15, 20, 30 years,” he said. “The combined failure of the political system and business class has had a greater negative impact on small business.”

According to Harvard’s fifth annual U.S. Competitiveness Project report, the reasons are easy to identify and impact small business most. The study finds:

The United States retains key strengths in areas like higher education, entrepreneurship and capital markets. But those advantages have been offset by weaknesses in the corporate tax code, early and secondary education, infrastructure, the political system and health care.

Those problems have gone unsolved because Washington has failed to have an honest conversation about addressing them, and the country lacks a cohesive economic strategy, particularly at the federal level.

Colorado’s economy is small business-centric, as are many neighboring states, so as we enjoy a regional boom compared to other parts of the country, it’s a reminder that while things are good, not all may be well.

Yet small business success was the topic last week at a Denver Startup Week panel I moderated along with Brooke Wolfe of Merchants Office Furniture. The topic was ‘Startup to Small Batch – How Craftsmen Become Manufacturers.’ On the panel were founders from several companies we’ve profiled — including Winter Session, Topo Designs, Azure Furniture, and Waste Farmers — and two we’re excited to write about, Coda Coffee and Rachio.

Their stories are an intriguing mix of a passion and place, of determination and controlled insanity, really. How else do you explain a decision to stay the course after realizing those pesky details like relationships, weekends, and vacations take a back seat to running a business?

One pivotal point for small maker companies may be that moment — that opportunity — when a company evolves from craft business to full-fledged manufacturer. There are many existential moments for small businesses, but it was fascinating to hear when these successful entrepreneurs realized they’d graduated to another level. Getting more small business to this moment is the objective.

For John-Paul Maxfield, founder and CEO of Waste Farmers, it was a recurring financial theme. “We knew we were a manufacturer when our rapid growth required diligent attention to capital allocation as we invested significant capital into our manufacturing capacity to keep up with our current and projected sales,” he explained.

“When we grew from my garage into a slightly larger 6,000-square-foot facility that we leased, it never hit us that we were a manufacturer, even as we manufactured our products, it was just a logical evolution of being really excited about the products we were making. When we moved into the 80,000-square-foot facility we’d recently purchased to give us 10X capacity, that quickly brought the reality of the importance of the manufacturing component of our business to the forefront,” he added.

Topo Designs Mark Hansen also pointed to finances. “Our banking relationship became more important.”

Azure Furniture’s Corbin Clay had no doubt when they arrived. “I realized it when we had two shifts running, when 6 p.m. came around and I decided to head home, and everything just kept on going,” he said. “Production kept on running long after I left the building. That is when I realized that not only had Azure gotten much bigger than myself, but that it was a proper manufacturer; with SOPs, and policies, and managers. Pretty cool feeling.”

Tommy Thwaites of Coda Coffee had a similar experience. “My brother (and business partner) and I were always hesitant to take vacations at the same time — we always thought one of us needed to be there,” he laughed. “But we finally did and came back and were relieved, but not surprised really, that the lights were still on and things were running smoothly.” An exclamation point for the importance of the care of feeding of small business.

More on the journey of small manufacturers in coming weeks.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Contact him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Utah’s new MEP—the University of Utah—a promising resource for local manufacturers

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The U.S. Department of Commerce channels resources to American manufacturing through NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology and its Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) network.

It sounds like layers of government bureaucracy, but the MEP network is actually a diverse public-private mix, collectively pursuing the objective of supporting U.S. manufacturing. Today every state in the union has a single, federally supported Manufacturing Extension partner. Each is different: the national network is a mix of private sector, non-profit, university and local organizations, tailored to the meet the unique makeup of each state. The partners provide services “ranging from process improvement and workforce development to specialized business practices, including supply chain integration, innovation, and technology transfer.”

The feds require that entities occasionally ‘compete’ for the contract with NIST and the funding and support that comes along with it. It’s not an inconsequential amount of money: Utah’s new MEP, the University of Utah’s MEP Center, ‘will receive $16 million in funding over the next five years from both federal and state governments as well as local industry.’

The University of Utah competed to become Utah’s new MEP and in the end will replace Utah Valley University as the NIST partner. In Colorado, California, New Mexico and other centers throughout the West, MEP’s are hybrid organizations with university ties. Some operate for-profit businesses, many selling services to help manufacturers improve operational performance using concepts like Lean Six Sigma.

Yet Bart Raeymaekers and Bruce Gale, engineering faculty and authors of the grant proposal and recipients of the MEP charter, envisioned a different focus. I asked Raeymaekers what compelled the university to compete for the MEP opportunity.

“We noticed that the entire MEP system nationwide has been focused heavily on operational excellence, and realized that the future of manufacturing, and for small and medium sized businesses to compete in the global marketplace, that operational excellence can only bring you so far,” he explained. “You can only shave so much costs from your operation. Ultimately, we believe you have try to grow top line line revenue to compete.

“What we’re really good at in this country is technology and innovation and that’s what we’re going to focus on,” he added. “That was the the new paradigm we pitched — helping companies drive top-line revenue growth while still providing operational excellence to grow profits.”

Utah’s new center will accomplish this by introducing companies to technology and leveraging America’s great R&D advantage, a common theme now emerging nationwide as manufacturing reinvents itself.

“We’ll be heavily focused in helping companies focus on implementing advanced manufacturing technologies, help them innovate w their processes and products,” Raeymaekers said, “to go after new markets, help them with business intelligence to do that (data-driven intelligence) and at the same time also provide workforce education, because if you want to implement new technologies, you have to train workforce and management to be able to adopt these new technologies within the company.”

Yet the manufacturing opportunity today is much more than high-tech manufacturing. For one, consumers are driving demand for locally-made products to satisfy new tastes for craft or on-demand products. Today consumers are reshaping the manufacturing landscape as much as technology. It’s not lost on Raeymaekers. I pointed out that Utah boasts a healthy mix of high-and-low-tech manufacturing.

“First of all you’re right. We did an analysis of Utah’s sector and it’s certainly not all high-tech. But our center will be focusing on process and product innovation, advanced technologies, workforce education, and operational excellence, all of which really apply to all different sectors. We can bring the same tool sets and skill we have on staff to serve manufacturers independent of the sector they’re in.”

He also added, insightfully, “Even if you’re making tee-shirts, you can still benefit from data-driven business analytics — the best markets to pursue or products to launch. We have those tool sets available and want to deploy across the entire manufacturing sector.”

Lastly, Raeymaekers pointed out the Center will also help companies acquire capital and financing, a critical service as manufacturing truly develops from small business upward. “If companies are to innovate that means they need to get funded. We want to link companies with investment sources to provide financing, including subject matter experts at the university to help small business go after technology grants, for example.”

Music to my ears. We’re excited to work with Utah’s new MEP to bring the first Manufacturing Growth & Financing Conference to the state in the spring of 2017.

Also, more on how the Center will arm Utah manufacturers with advanced technologies in the coming weeks. In the interim, contact Bart Raeymaekers at bart.raeymaekers@utah.edu.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

CompanyWeek at year three: six new takeaways for regional manufacturing

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I look back on my column from a year ago — CompanyWeek at two years: Six takeaways as manufacturing surges — and grimace. I’ve learned so much in a year.

With that in mind, as CompanyWeek begins year four, here are six new takeaways based on a fresh look at last year’s conclusions and what I got wrong – and right.

Last year’s takeaway: 1. Manufacturing’s cross-industry comeback continues unabated.

Today it would be more accurate to say that productivity growth continues unabated, though some industries are faring better than others.

As we’ve chronicled all year, food and beverage manufacturing is the fastest growing sector in the state, confirmed again last week by the Denver Business Journal. Aerospace and bioscience manufacturing, transformed by technology and benefitting from Colorado’s rich innovation ecosystem, are equally dynamic. The seeds of a true American manufacturing comeback in outdoor gear and accessories is also germinating, but supply-chain challenges are a drag on what otherwise is promising long term prospects for more Colorado-made products.

Manufacturers wed to energy or growth in overseas markets are more challenged. Consumer products made here face stiff competition from global competitors, who still manufacture less expensively. Workforce continues to be a barrier for others.

But despite these headline-grabbing challenges, manufacturing is a new regional economic force, with consumers driving innovation on one hand, and automation and high-tech fabrication reshaping the sector on the other.

So here’s the new takeaway: It’s not all roses, but manufacturing’s new look is manifest in Colorado and the West.

Last year: 2. Public and private sector support isn’t keeping pace with manufacturing’s advance.

Last year I bemoaned the spotty understanding of manufacturing among those who report on economy or provide development services often using taxpayer dollars. The business press is still maddeningly uninformed; witness the hyperventilating last week about the PMI falling under 50 for the first time in six months.

But manufacturers are changing the perception of the sector by reshoring jobs whenever possible and creating a new era of U.S. competitiveness. Development of the supply chain is critical. The revelation is that we don’t fully understand what supply chain development means.

New takeaway: It’s cool to be a manufacturer again, but as the supply chain goes, so goes manufacturing.

Last year: 3. Manufacturing should be a ‘Key Industry’ in a simplified economic Blueprint.

Last year I argued that dropping ‘Advanced’ and listing ‘Manufacturing’ as a key industry sector would shine a well-deserved light on all manufacturing and simplify access to a confusing system. It’s still a good idea. We learned last week that Government Workers Now Outnumber Manufacturing Workers by 9,932,000. Manufacturers need less blueprints, associations, new designations, and taxpayer-funded bureaucracies.

Today manufacturers are quick to advocate smaller government and less regulation. We’re less enthusiastic about rolling back a raft of taxpayer-funded subsidies, awards, and grants coursing the system, many without accountability that seperates worthy investments from well-intentioned spending.

New takeaway: Less regulation or more public-sector programs? Which will you have?

Last year: 4. Congressional inaction in support of manufacturing is a travesty.

Elected officials do less and campaign more. As we lower our public-policy standards, it’s important we ramp up private sector efforts to get important things done.

Beyond that, it’s up to local officials to lead. Want to get in the manufacturing game? Develop a small business ecosystem friendly for startups and supply-chain infrastructure that sustains maker-business growth.

New takeaway: Work through the private sector to get things done — and go directly to voters with key issues like infrastructure.

Last year: 5. Where robust support has developed, it now must evolve.

See all of the above. Manufacturing growth hinges most on private/public collaboration around supply chain development.

One other tactic worth a big mention: Brands making things here still face consumer resistance on price. For many maker businesses, it’s still more expensive to make things in the U.S. Colorado’s marketing messages should evolve to support brands operating here. Raise the profile of Colorado-made products. Borrow a few dollars from tourism’s massive war chest to fund a national campaign about the high-quality, authentic products made here. Don’t add to the ad spend; refine it on behalf of industry.

New takeaway: Use Colorado’s strong tourism brand to better promote the state as a destination for lifestyle manufacturing.

Last year: 6. Manufacturers must agree on the way forward — one that involves a bigger tent.

Last year this column was a call for recognition of the sector. Things have changed: manufacturing’s profile is higher, it’s companies and leaders now the topic of conversation statewide and focus of more media coverage.

It’s time to play the role of leading economic driver and ask less of government, trade, and those we elect. Let’s put campaigning and campaign promises behind us.

New takeaway: 2017 is the year of the private sector — the year of the manufacturer.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Competing to thrive: Utah workforce vs. Colorado high-velocity industry. Who has the edge?

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In three years of profiling Colorado manufacturers and two years writing about Utah’s sector, it’s easy to understand why economic developers from each state view the other as primary competition. The attributes of each sector are strikingly similar.

It’s hard, for example, to distinguish between aerospace and bioscience contract manufacturers fabricating for high-profile OEMs; between world-class gear and outdoor industry brands; or the development dialogue that’s an envy of other states not benefitting from the in-migration of talent, money, and ambition. Both states boast great R&D research universities, transferring ideas and talent into the commercial stream. There are other similarities, much to do with the general appeal of the West.

There are differences. Utah is flush with consumer product brands compared to Colorado, where manufacturing is more significantly informed by ranching and agricultural. Colorado’s craft beverage sector has a gravity of it’s own, attracting like-minded businesses and a growing supply chain. In Weber County Utah’s perfecting a regional cluster strategy around outdoor industry that Colorado officials envy, going so far as to emulate a state-level outdoor industry office to both steward resources and attract world-class companies.

But two differences stand out. Both translate into a distinct competitive advantage — or potential missed opportunity for the other guy. How each responds may tip the competitive balance.

Utah is winning the workforce development game, maybe even nationally, no small feat or inconsequential advantage. Colorado manufacturers are significantly more challenged to find the next generation of industrial employees. On the other hand Colorado’s high-velocity natural and organic products industry is an economic engine of its own, driven by a world-class ecosystem that starts and incubates early-stage companies. Food and beverage is the state’s fastest growing manufacturing sector.

Is either a game-changer that tips the competitive balance? Can either state play catch-up and obviate the other’s advantage?

Utah’s workforce advantage is a beacon for manufacturers. Simply, the state’s developing the next-generation talent manufacturers need — educated, tech-savvy and capable but also shaped positively by Utah’s cohesive community. Utah’s sons and daughters leave, many on Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints missions, but return often fluent in another language, motivated and exposed to the world, to start careers and families surrounded by people of the same faith.

It results in workforce advantages difficult to replicate.

But a community bent on challenging conventional wisdom attracts its own talent and energy. Many of the companies that launched a natural and organic products revolution from Colorado are now multi-million dollar brands — as are its craft beer counterparts. And the ecosystem of resources that’s developed to support early-stage company growth is at once highly developed and attracting new players. Wall Street’s taken up residence in Boulder County.

In the long view, Utah’s workforce advantage may be harder for Colorado to replicate. The factors that combine to undergird workforce development here are unique. And the ecosystem that coalesced in Colorado to provide a foundation for innovation and fast-growth can certainly develop in Utah. Companies like PROBAR, Creminelli, and Kodiak Cakes, all companies we’ve featured, are an incredible foundation. They’re national brands leading their own local revolution.

Yet our interest has always been promoting the region — not just the attributes of a single state. As the region goes, so will its key players. As Colorado and Utah compete, it’s fascinating to speculate how competitive the combined manufacturing assets of both states might be on the international stage.

A Western Manufacturing Consortium of developer’s dreams.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Reach him at btaylor@companyweek.com.

Manufacturing’s change-makers

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If foundries and fabricators are the heart and soul of manufacturing, today craft and lifestyle brands are its upstart rebels, tipping over convention and carving fresh tracks through and around an ecosystem never designed with its interests in mind.

Just the opposite. Craft food and beverage manufacturers have labored against a bulwark of industrial competition to gain a foothold but now lead a consumer revolution. Competitors are now envious suitors. Apparel and outdoor products enthusiasts intent on developing authentic, local brands work against a supply chain that was offshored wholesale in the late 20th century. But entrepreneurs find a way and today they plant the seeds for new U.S.-made industry, and model innovation and passion the multinational set covets.

In many ways these brands represent manufacturing’s future every bit as much as the tech-informed advanced manufacturers also changing our industrial landscape. Makers share a connection.

Here’s where we’re failing our rebellious vanguard. Support is often lip service and nothing more — even from manufacturing brethren. We’re prone to dismiss cutters, benders, and welders as relics but also frame the low-tech world of cut-and-sew or small-batch food processing as somehow beneath our aspirations as an advanced manufacturing community. For many, satellites are the end game, not saison or sweatshirts.

It’s a mistake to exclude any manufacturer. We should fancy them all.

For one, if we’re to change the perception of manufacturing, the new face of industry must include makers and manufacturers that resonate with a new generation. Today it’s a wide cross-section of neo-industrialists making ‘beer, food, clothes, skis, bicycles, and electric cars.’ Sally and Sam may not be interested in a career in rocket assembly or catheter fabrication, but may be in fashion design or advanced food processing and distribution. Or a manufacturing opportunity with an inherent social mission that helps scratch an itch.

A healthy cross-industry make-up also sustains the sector when select industries struggle. A perfect storm developed early this century when the U.S. auto industry imploded at the height of our infatuation with offshoring. Even the U.S. government was in the game. We invested in Russian-made rocket engines and manufacturing infrastructure in places like Vietnam, today a lifestyle manufacturing haven for U.S. brands.

Closer to home, pundits muse on the troubles ahead for Colorado’s craft beer sector. But if we look back, it was U.S. craft entrepreneurs sowing seeds for a more diverse sector. Ensuring manufacturing’s success means supporting a broad resurgence of industry.

So this week as CompanyWeek features a slew of upstart lifestyle manufacturers, embrace the change-makers. Revel in a new generation of manufacturers making it impossible to ignore the barriers we’ve thrown up that thwart our industrial ambitions — and their success.

And rally around the rebels.

Bart Taylor is publisher of CompanyWeek. Contact him at btaylor@companyweek.com.