{"id":10901,"date":"2014-10-01T12:47:45","date_gmt":"2014-10-01T16:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=10901"},"modified":"2015-08-25T12:51:40","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T16:51:40","slug":"maine-100-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/maine-100-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Maine 100 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

October 2014 | View this entire story as a .pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Financially, we navigate by new stars now.\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

Commentary By Evan Livada<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

Data Provided By Hoover\u2019s\/Dunn & Bradstreet<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"maine_100\"We asked Evan Livada of Livada Securities if Oakhurst Dairy, sold last year to Dairy Farmers of America in Kansas City, will have to change its motto to \u2018The Natural Goodness of Missouri\u2019 now that the former Portland-headquartered firm, run by the Bennett family since 1921, is, well, from<\/i> Missouri. [One year, the late Stan Bennett was waiting in our lobby at daybreak: \u201cTell me! Where did Oakhurst come out in The Maine 100?\u201d<\/i>]\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI doubt it. They like the Maine monicker, so I imagine they\u2019ll market it the same way in New England, at least.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Dairy Farms of America topped $12B in annual revenues in 2012; Oakhurst was just under $100M (CY 2012) before being sold on January 31, 2014.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBut a lot of family firms in Maine continue<\/i> to put out great products. Take Dennis Beverage and Nappi Distributors. Dennis Beverage is a longtime family owned business that just keeps on growing. Started by five Russian immigrants as Washington County Bottling Works in 1906, they first hit the Maine market delivering by horse and carriage. In the 1940s, they developed their own brand of soft drinks.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

To solidify that, \u201cthey were distributors for Hyers Root Beer and Nesbitt\u2019s orange drink from Los Angeles. Remember Nesbitt?<\/span><\/p>\n

Was that before or after Bubble-Up?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the 1950s, they started delivering malt beverages just as everyone started drinking beer in the postwar years. They moved from Ellsworth to Veazie and now to Bangor, where they have a sparkling 55,000-square-foot facility.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAlong the same lines, you have Nappi, distributing beer and wine since 1933. They\u2019re in their third generation. In 2007, they built a new plant in Gorham, 155,000 square feet. That\u2019s a lot of beer and wine.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFor craft beers, Shipyard is creating brew pubs across the country. Then there\u2019s\u00a0 Allagash. All sorts of craft beers seem to be thriving. They charge a lot for their craft beers. Restaurateurs aren\u2019t all that thrilled about this, because the margins are low for the restaurants.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cL.L. Bean posted their fourth year in a row of greater revenues. Employees get an 8 percent bonus. The company plans to invest $100M to expand their online and retail business. They\u2019re projecting growth of 11 to 14 percent next year. They expect capital expenditures of $80M.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A darling of the Maine 100, \u201cWEX is up 13.5 percent this year in a market that has gone up maybe 5 percent. The stock\u2019s gone from $70 to $120<\/i> a share. They now operate in North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. In June, they bought a $532M health care payment company.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn 2008, the trio of Priceline, Orbitz, and Expedia was 7 percent of WEX\u2019s business; now it\u2019s 25 percent.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt No. 9, Greenpages, based in Kittery, a cloud-based consulting and integration firm, was $30 million in 2010. It\u2019s $130 million this year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Though it\u2019s a nonprofit and not listed on the Maine 100, \u201cCIEE, Inc. [$128M] has a very cool building in the Old Port. They have programs for exchange students, businesses, teachers, international seminars. They have a real good niche.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIngredients Solutions, started in 1992 in Waldo, has $50M in sales. Where\u2019s Waldo!? They\u2019re the world\u2019s largest independent distributor of carrageenan<\/i>, which is seaweed. They\u2019re huge into dairy, meat sausages, pet food, toothpaste. They use it in ice cream and frozen desserts to keep it from separating.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

North of Waterville is Pride Manufacturing Co. in Burnham. \u201cThey\u2019re the world\u2019s largest maker of wooden golf tees. In 2005, they produced two billion golf tees a year. This year they made national news\u2013I remember the feature on NBC\u2013when they landed the contract from Hatfield, Pennsylvania\u2019s K\u2019NEX to manufacture Lincoln Logs. Remember Lincoln Logs?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Kids…played with them while drinking Nesbitt?<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cInvented in 1916 by John Lloyd Wright, the son of Frank Lloyd Wright, Lincoln Logs are enjoying a huge resurgence post-Starbucks. Before the new contract, Pride had 130 employees. Now they\u2019re adding 10 more jobs. Very cool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October 2014 | View this entire story as a .pdf Financially, we navigate by new stars now.\u00a0 Commentary By Evan Livada Data Provided By Hoover\u2019s\/Dunn & Bradstreet We asked Evan Livada of Livada Securities if Oakhurst Dairy, sold last year to Dairy Farmers of America in Kansas City, will have to change its motto to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10903,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[86],"class_list":["post-10901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-october-2014"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10904,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10901\/revisions\/10904"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10903"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}