How Kim Jordan, New Belgium Brewing's cofounder and CEO, is discovering how tough it can be to transform from a niche player into a national brand.
In January 2013, Kim Jordan, the cofounder and CEO of New Belgium Brewing, called an all-hands meeting and stunned employees by announcing that the company had been sold. Once the gasps subsided, she told staffers that the envelopes on their chairs contained the identity of the buyer. Inside they found a mirror, Jordan's way of informing them that they were the new owners of New Belgium through an employee stock-ownership plan.
The turnover spike is notable at a company where staffers have long told the company's story with pride: Electrical engineer Jeff Lebesch, a home brewer from Fort Collins, went on a mountain-bike tour through Belgium in 1988 and fell in love with the country's beer. Belgian brewers often add fruit, such as oranges and cherries, and spices like cardamom to the usual malted barley and hops.
Jordan says she has no regrets about selling the company to the employees even though an open-market sale would have brought a higher price. Forbes pegs her net worth at less than $200 million, a fraction of the $1 billion fortune of Ken Grossman, founder and 100% owner of Chico, California, craft brewer Sierra Nevada, whose revenues are not much higher than New Belgium's."I have plenty of money," Jordan says."We sold to the [employees] at a fair price.
At Wilbur's Total Beverage in Fort Collins, six-packs of Day Blazer cost $7.99 and sit in a case a distant 27 refrigerator doors from the craft-beer display, where a six-pack of New Belgium's flagship Fat Tire amber ale fetches $9.99."To a lot of beer geeks, New Belgium is considered the Budweiser of the craft beer world," says the bearded store clerk.
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