Monday Business Roundup
Coors Up, Frontier, Newmont DownThree of Northern Colorado's biggest companies made news in the last few days – and only one had a welcome story to tell.
Molson Coors, the third-largest U.S. brewer, announced a two-for-one stock split. The beermaker also found a convenient close to a three-month strike at its plant in Edmonton: it shut the plant down.
Despite a relatively new fleet of jets, a reputation for good service and reliability, and a hip marketing plan, Frontier Airlines has seen its stock nosedive by 43 percent in the last year. Last week the company's chief executive Jeff Potter said he will resign.
Not ripe for takeover is Denver-based mining giant Newmont Mining Corp., which reported that it lost $2 billion in its most recent quarter.
In other business news: Businesses profit from West Nile fears; anti-ladies' night crusader loses in court; convicted Nacchio tries ignorance-and-incompetence defense.
[more]
Monday Business Roundup
Local Moviegoers Await Theater OpeningFor years analysts have considered the movie-theater business overbuilt, as evidenced by the closing of cineplexes across the West that were built in the small-box cinema boom of the 1980s. Try telling that to Boulder residents, though, who have exactly one aging four-screen theater in a town of more than 100,000 and who have been forced to drive south to the Colony Square and Flatirons megaplexes to get a decent choice of new releases.
That will change, finally, in August when the 16-screen movie theater at Boulder's Twenty Ninth Street mall will light up after multiple delays, nearly a year after its original scheduled opening.
The theater was delayed by a change of ownership, when Century Theatres was bought out by Cinemark USA Inc. As it happens, Cinemark USA is one of the parterns in Centennial-based National CineMedia, a digital theater-ads company that beams pre-movie programming via satellite to around 12,000 theaters nationwide. While benefiting from new-theater construction, National CineMedia is also moving into a new line of business: digital programming for health clubs.
In other business news: Denver law firm sinks in personal-injury morass; anti-smoking-ban group broadcasts gloomy and dubious figures; and casino towns get rich off billions in bets.
[more]
Guest Column
Diet for a Warming Planet: What to Eat in the Wake of Climate ChangeThanks to Al Gore and others in the business of teaching Americans the science of global warming, many of us realize that we must act now to minimize looming disaster. We’ve been told what to change about our driving habits, but what about our eating? According to a report from the University of Chicago (2002), food production accounts for 17 percent of all fossil fuels used. So here are some ideas for turning down the heat with the food you eat. [more]
Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Where’s the beef FROM? The Country Natural Beef Co-op
I don’t often eat meat, but while I was in Portland this weekend, my husband and I went on a romantic date and I decided to splurge at the French inspired, Carafe Bistro. I ordered the burger. It was the only meat that was clearly marked as Oregon grown. The price influenced my decision too. I wanted a glass of expensive Oregon Pinot Noir, so I ordered the $9 burger rather than another, more expensive, entree.
It arrived as thick as my fist and was topped with a home-made, well-buttered bun. In one bite, I was swooning. I could not contain my satisfaction. It was, in fact, the best burger I have ever had.
When the waitress leaned over to fill our water and ask how the meal was, the juice oozed from my mouth. I focused long enough to tell her how good it was when she reminded me that it was Oregon meat. I nodded in a stupor.
“We get it from Oregon Country Beef,” she smiled.
[more]
Brew News
Kettlehouse Brewery Plans for Second Location on Northside
The Northside neighborhood of Missoula is abuzz with rumors of a second coming.
The Kettlehouse Brewery just keeps growing and has its sights set on opening a new brewing and tasting facility on the north side of Missoula.
“We need more production space. We’re hemmed in on both sides. We’re at this transition,” says Kettlehouse founder and owner Tim O’Leary. “We’ve got to make a big jump.”
O’Leary is planning to make that jump into an old 10,000-square-foot railroad building on the north side of the tracks. The Pacific West building is a single-story brick structure on 1st Street straddling the Orange street underpass.
If you’ve ever tried to buy a pint at the Myrtle Street taproom at 5 o’clock on a Friday afternoon you know what a popular Missoula hangout it has become. O’Leary doesn’t plan to change that.
“We don’t want to rob from what Myrtle Street does. We always want to have that,” he says. “We just can’t fit any more tanks in there.”
[more]
Spade & Spoon: Localizing the Way Westerners Eat
Food and Ag Summit: Solutions to Healing An Ailing Food System
For Molly Anderson, research coordinator for the Farm and Food Policy Project, healing Montana’s food system begins by looking at the entire life cycle of food from ground to mouth, seed to sewer. To improve the health of our food system we must examine each organ of processing, packaging, advertising, cost... and the vascular transportation system that connects them.
For instance, food may expel fewer emissions when it travels greater distances than it would if grown in a greenhouse that is warmed with fossil fuels. Or food grown in Malawi might support the economy for that country while contributing only a fraction to greenhouse gases.
This two-part series on Spade & Spoon highlights the Montana Governor's Food and Agriculture Summit held in March in Helena. The first article noted the issues associated with creating local food systems in Montana. This piece -- the second -- discusses solutions.
[more]
Home brew Competition
Home Brew Team Wins Big Sky Competition With Earthy ESB
“It’s my favorite beverage…after water,” says Mike Hoffer.
Naturally, Hoffer, the winner of this year's Big Sky Brewery home brew competition is talking about beer.
Hoffer's beer is now on sale at Big Sky after being selected in early December by a panel at Big Sky Brewery and later that month re-brewed at Big Sky. Hoffer brewed the beer with partners Amber and David Blake for the Zoo City Zymurgists home brew club. The crew first brewed its winning beer for the Montana State Fair to promote the Homebrew Club. It’s simple to become a member of the club: just attend a meeting and pay five dollars for membership and you’re in. Blake and Hoffer both agree that most people in the club just love beer, drinking it, talking about it, and yes, brewing it.
[more]
Wild West Gourmet Turns Mainstream
Montana-Based MacKenzie River Pizza Co. Sells to Expand
A newly-formed restaurant group this week announced its purchase of four Montana restaurant companies, including Montana's largest restaurant chain, MacKenzie River Pizza Company, with the hopes of expanding and possibly franchising to locations around the United States.
Glacier Restaurant Group LLC's purchase of the MacKenzie Northwest Inc. as well as Mambo's, Craggy Range Bar and Grill and the Corner House Grille, all located in Whitefish, has become the largest Montana-based restaurant accumulation by one company.
MacKenzie River, a household name for Montanans, exemplifies the vibe of the state. The employees of the 12 dough-tossing locations are encouraged to take the “Work Hard, Play Hard” motto to heart. It exudes in that atmosphere with walls doting fishing rods, old skis, and saddles and spurs inside framed log timber booths. Will the location expansion dilute the “Made in Montana” ownership and distinctiveness that MacKenzie River possesses in the hearts of Montanans?
[more]
Natural Grocery Wars
Whole Foods: Winners and Losers
The $565 million purchase of Boulder-based Wild Oats by its larger rival, Whole Foods of Austin, Tex., is a good deal for Wild Oats investors, who will receive about a 23 percent premium on the 20-year-old natural grocer's share price. It's a good deal for the natural-foods industry as a whole, which gets a titan capable of competing with the likes of Safeway and Wal-Mart, which have caught on to the healthy-eating trend in the last several years. It's certainly a good deal for Whole Foods' management, which gets rid of its peskiest rival.
It's also good news for Boulder entrepreneurs, who've seen a raft of homegrown companies including SpectraLink Corp., Izze Beverage Co., McData Corp., and Abacus sell for sizable sums.
It's not such a good deal for the likely-significant percentage of Wild Oats' 1,100 Colorado employees who will lose their jobs. But who else wins and loses?
Somewhat lost in the extensive national and local coverage of the deal were one big winner and one potential big loser.
[more]
Natural Grocery Wars
Whole Foods to Buy Wild OatsWednesday afternoon Whole Foods Market Inc. said it will purchase Boulder-based Wild Oats Markets Inc. for $565 million, ending the death-match struggle between the two natural-foods emporia. Based in Austin, Tex., Whole Foods has been a business phenomenon over the last half-decade as Americans of all classes discovered the benefits of zucchini corn cakes, two-buck-a-bottle natural sodas, and freshly made sushi from "Whole Paycheck." Wild Oats, meanwhile, has struggled to keep up, closing several stores and seeing its same-store sales flatten. Even as Whole Foods doubled its profits, Wild Oats lost money in two of the past five years. Both grocers have faced stiffer competition from traditional markets, like Safeway, that have delved into the natural-foods trends, as well as California-based Trader Joe's.
The sale marks the end of the line as an independent entity for one of Boulder's most successful corporations.
