Manufacturers in Colorado: small plants, high pay, and as many breweries as machine shops

This report is for anyone looking for a Colorado manufacturer, whether to source parts, find a co-packer or brewer, work in the industry or sell to it. It covers the federal count and how Colorado compares in the Mountain West, the counties and industries, the public companies headquartered here, where to find private manufacturers by name, and a prospecting plan.

Colorado manufacturing in numbers

Census Bureau figures for Colorado, from County Business Patterns (CBP) for manufacturing as a whole (NAICS 31 to 33):

By our ranking of the state file, Colorado is 31st by manufacturing employees, and manufacturing is 5.2% of the jobs CBP counts in the state, among the lowest shares in the country. Manufacturer's Edge, the state's Manufacturing Extension Partnership center, shows a higher total employment figure, 147,692, without naming its source on the page; different years and definitions explain gaps like that.

The CBP count is of establishments, physical locations with paid employees, for the week of March 12, 2023. A brewer with a production brewery in Fort Collins and a canning plant in Denver counts twice, its head office is classed as a management office, and one-person shops without payroll aren't counted.

How Colorado compares in the Mountain West

From the same CBP state file; per-plant and pay figures are our calculation. Colorado has the most manufacturing plants in the region but fewer manufacturing jobs than Arizona or Utah. Its plants are small, so a Colorado territory means many accounts with modest headcounts.

Where the plants are

County figures are from the CBP county file (13 fewer establishments in total than the state figure); pay is our calculation. These nine Front Range counties hold 3,884 plants, 77% of the state's. Boulder and Larimer pay well, and computer and electronics plants employ 3,552 and 3,995 people there. Weld's plants are bigger (40 employees on average) because of food processing: its 43 food plants employ 6,709. Douglas County's 159 plants pay the most, $127,941 on average.

What Colorado makes

Three things stand out in the detailed codes. Beer: 257 breweries employ 5,458 people, almost as many establishments as the state's 265 machine shops. The Colorado Brewers Guild counts "400+" craft breweries. The Census industry covers microbreweries without a restaurant or bar, so brewpubs are counted elsewhere, and breweries without payroll aren't counted at all. Meat: 34 cattle and other slaughtering plants employ 7,360. Electronics and space: 23 semiconductor plants employ 3,451 and 28 surgical and medical instrument plants 2,564, while three guided missile and space vehicle plants have an employee figure the Census Bureau flagged as high-noise (changed by 5% or more for confidentiality), so we don't report it.

Size

That's 3,849 plants under 20 employees, 937 with 20 to 99 and only 245 with 100 or more.

Public manufacturers headquartered in Colorado

SEC EDGAR lists 40 companies with a listed ticker, a manufacturing SIC code (2000 to 3999) and a Colorado business address. The 12 largest, with headquarters and revenue confirmed in each company's latest Form 10-K:

Revenue is company-wide; most of these companies' production is spread across several states and countries.

Finding Colorado manufacturers by name

1. Statewide. Manufacturer's Edge, based in Westminster, is Colorado's NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnership center, with programs from lean and quality to CMMC cybersecurity; its network and events are a way to meet plants.
2. Brewers and beverage makers. The Colorado Brewers Guild runs a find-a-brewery directory and map.
3. Expansions and new arrivals. The state's Office of Economic Development and International Trade and the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation publish industry profiles and investment news.
4. Entity checks. The Colorado Secretary of State's business database confirms a company's status and registered agent, and the same records are downloadable as the Business Entities in Colorado open dataset.
5. Safety record. Colorado has no OSHA state plan, so federal OSHA covers its private plants; its Establishment Search lists inspections by name and ZIP code.

Prospecting Colorado manufacturers

With 77% of plants under 20 employees, Colorado rewards sellers who can show value quickly and install without long projects. Aerospace and defense suppliers along the Front Range add a compliance angle, because primes pass quality and cybersecurity requirements down the chain.

Worked example: a packaging automation integrator

Illustrative example. The integrator and its hit rates are made up; the plant counts are Census data.

Front Range Pack Automation (frontrangepack.example) installs case packers, labelers and palletizers for food and beverage plants with 10 to 99 employees.

• Food and beverage establishments in Colorado: 628 + 429 = 1,057.
• Across all Colorado manufacturing, 1,692 of 5,031 plants (34%) have 10 to 99 employees. At that share, about 355 food and beverage plants fit.
• The nine Front Range counties hold 77% of the state's plants, so about 275 are within a day's service drive.
• At one project per 25 accounts worked, that's about 11 projects from the first pass.

The research is finding which brewers and food makers just won distribution or added a canning line. Bebop can search for "Front Range breweries and food manufacturers with 10 to 99 employees that expanded distribution or added a packaging line this year" and write a playbook for each.

Subject: End-of-line packing at [Company]

Hi [first name],

Congratulations on [the new distribution deal / the canning line]. At your volume, hand-packing cases is usually the first bottleneck after the filler, and it's the easiest to fix in a weekend.

We install case packers and palletizers for Front Range breweries and food makers with 10 to 100 people. Could I send a layout for your packing area?

[Your name], Front Range Pack Automation

For Colorado businesses beyond manufacturing, see companies in Colorado; for the space and aviation side, see aerospace companies in Colorado.

Next step: the manufacturing industry guide explains how plants are organized to buy.