A look at Boulder, CO, home to our 2017 Snack Producer of the Year

The population of Boulder, CO is around 100,000 people. But its natural and organic food culture influences the nation at large.

This thriving city in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains is the epicenter of the nation’s natural and organic foods movement thanks to its concentration of synergistic forces related to innovation and investment capital—and a public keenly aligned with these foods.

Boulder is home to Quinn Snacks, our 2017 “Snack Producer of the Year,” as well as Rudi’s Organic Bakery, this month’s cover story and the leading nationally distributed organic bread brand.

Boulder is also home to a number of other leading and emerging snack and bakery brands, including:

1908 Brands, including Three Bears (oatmeal and bars), Fruitivity Snacks (fruit chips) and Thrive Tribe (bars, snack bites, coconut chips and cookies)
Birch Benders (pancake and waffle mixes)
Bobo’s Oat Bars (bars)
Boulder Brands, including Glutino (gluten-free breads, bars, salty snacks, cookies, crackers, pizza and pastries) and Udi’s (gluten-free bagels, English muffins, breads, buns and rolls, cookies, granola, muffins, pizza and tortillas)
Boulder Dough (pizza crusts)
HannahMax Cookie Chips (cookies)
Made in Nature (dried fruit, snack mixes)
Outrageous Baking Co. (gluten-free sweet breads)

And that’s just snacks and bakery—and an incomplete list at that. Step outside our industry, and the connections run even deeper, with Izze Beverages, Celestial Seasonings, WhiteWave and others calling Boulder home.

Natural and organic specialist KeHE Distributors has an office in town. The nonprofit organization Naturally Boulder helps foster growth for many of these companies. And local investment capital runs deep.

When I visited Boulder to cover this month’s profile, I was struck by the city’s vibrant food culture—from restaurants to snack and bakery producers and beyond. It’s an environment that will undoubtedly continue to grow natural and organic companies that grab snack and bakery category market share for years to come.

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Douglas J. Peckenpaugh is Group Publisher of Snack Food & Wholesale Bakery, Dairy Foods, The National Provisioner, and Packaging Strategies for BNP Media. He has nearly three decades of publishing experience following the food industry from farm to fork, covering agriculture, ingredient processing, retail grocery branding, foodservice menu development, and food product R&D and manufacturing. He serves in leadership roles at his local suburban Chicago food pantry and church. Doug studied Professional and Creative Writing at Purdue University.

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