Making the products that our businesses rely on, that hospitals need or that consumers buy every day is a national priority. But encouraging manufacturing in Colorado, far from ports and the country’s main population centers, isn’t always a straightforward conversation.
The products that get made in the Centennial State, and especially in the Denver area, often fall into what’s known as “advanced manufacturing” — items that don’t necessarily require giant manufacturing plants but involve sophisticated design engineering and highly specialized employees.
Of course, Colorado is still Colorado, so plenty of outdoor gear is made in the state, as well as foods and several other surprising products. Here’s a brief guide to some products made in our backyard. —Kourtney Geers
OUTDOOR GEAR
Green Guru Gear
Boulder-based Green Guru Gear, which makes cycling pouches, wallets and other adventure bags out of recycled materials such as bike tubes, wet suits, climbing rope and tents, has manufactured its products in Longmont and Broomfield since Davidson Lewis founded the upcycler in 2005. Outdoor retailers like The North Face, Patagonia, REI and Kelty donate leftover materials and faulty products to Green Guru, and the company also accepts donations of used gear from customers.
In its 20 years of business, the manufacturer has transformed more than 500,000 pounds of material that likely would have wound up in a landfill, according to an October 2024 blog post on Green Guru’s website. The company is planning to release new bags in the coming months. —Jenna Barackman
Never Summer Snowboards
Never Summer Snowboards is one of the last large family-owned U.S. manufacturers in its industry. The company, headquartered in Denver and owned and led by brothers Tim and Tracey Canaday, has produced its boards in Colorado since 1991.
The snowboard maker sources many of its materials from inside the U.S., according to the company’s website. Never Summer also incorporates wood from several fast-growing plants, like paulownia and bamboo, a more sustainable option than using trees that take longer to mature. Customers can tour Never Summer’s Denver factory, at 3838 Eudora Way, for free to see how boards come together. —Jenna Barackman
Read more: How Tim and Tracey Canaday turned Never Summer into an iconic snowboard brand
Xero Shoes
Broomfield-based Xero Shoes, a manufacturer of barefoot footwear — shoes made with flexible materials that have wide toe boxes, no cushioning and a non-elevated heel — designs all its products in Colorado, though its shoes are manufactured overseas. Steven Sashen and Lena Phoenix launched the company in 2009. Their shoes rapidly gained popularity after a “Shark Tank” appearance in 2013.
A Xero Shoes warehouse opened in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood in 2022, according to previous Denver Business Journal reporting, and a showroom was added to the location in 2023. The company recently began selling the X1, a shoe made for basketball players, and plans to release footwear for toddlers in the coming months, according to a spokesperson. —Jenna Barackman
Read more: A decade after Shark Tank, founders of Broomfield’s Xero Shoes don’t regret declining a deal
FINANCE & HEALTH CARE
CPI Card Group
Littleton-based CPI Card Group Inc. (Nasdaq: PMTS) is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of payment cards, such as credit and debit cards. CPI in March reported a 19% decrease in its profit for the full fiscal year of 2024, but the company’s leadership is confident that the card market remains strong. CEO Rob Lowe told the Denver Business Journal last year that he anticipates single-digit annual growth after several years of banks stockpiling cards amid record consumer demand. In 2024, CPI increased its gross profit 20% from 2023 to $42.6 million.
In addition to its facility in Littleton, CPI has operations in Nashville, Tennessee; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Minneapolis. In all, the company employs about 1,400 people in the U.S., 300 of whom are based in Colorado, according to previous reporting. —Analisa Romano
Read more: Why this new Littleton CEO is bullish on payment cards
CordenPharma
Swiss pharmaceutical giant CordenPharma has a facility in Boulder and has historically been involved in medications like antivirals and anticancers. But the rise of GLP-1 peptides, such as Ozempic, have quickly grown to make up the company’s largest programs, according to Denver Business Journal reporting.
CordenPharma said in 2024 that it plans to invest $500 million in an expansion of its Boulder facility to bolster its manufacturing of GLP-1 peptides. It will add more equipment at existing facilities and construct a 40,000- to 60,000-square-foot building on its 40-acre campus, CordenPharma leaders told the DBJ. They said they hope to have the expansion operational in 2027.
At full build-out, the project will have added 170 new jobs to the company’s current local force of 630. —Analisa Romano
Read more: Swiss drug giant to invest $500M in local expansion
Terumo BCT
Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies is a medical technology company with products and services for the collection and preparation of blood and cells used to treat disease. Part of Tokyo-based med tech giant Terumo Group, Terumo BCT’s global headquarters are in Lakewood. Founded in 1965, Terumo employs 7,000 people globally and 2,000 in Colorado, per the company.
Terumo has multiple manufacturing sites and innovation and development centers, including in Douglas County and Lakewood. In Douglas County, it runs a Rika Plasma Collection System — a contraption that helps to optimize blood plasma collection — and makes some parts for that system, Christine Romero, a Terumo spokesperson, said. In Lakewood, it makes most of the devices it uses for collecting, processing and separating blood cells, plus some parts for blood collection kits. —Analisa Romano
Read more: Blood crisis brings new products, processes in Colorado
INDUSTRIAL & AEROSPACE
Amp Robotics
Most recycling ends up in the same landfill as garbage. Matanya Horowitz founded Louisville-based Amp Robotics to change that.
The company builds sorting robots powered by artificial intelligence meant for deployment in waste processing facilities, where the technology identifies and diverts recyclable items.
Its Amp One system installed at a Portsmouth, Virginia, facility diverts more than 60% of the 150 tons of trash the plant processes daily when paired with other sorting systems. Amp plans to equip its first Colorado facility, Commerce City’s Waste Connections, by early 2026, per a press release.
Amp employed more than 200 people as of 2023 and raised $91 million in Series D funding last year. Horowitz now serves as chief technology officer. —Jackson Guilfoil
Read more: Denver-area startup hauls in $91 million to deploy recycling system
Azure Printed Homes
A California-based company that 3D prints houses is expanding its footprint outside of the Golden State by bringing a manufacturing facility to Colorado.
Azure Printed Homes makes small prefabricated homes using primarily recycled plastic polymer materials through a patented 3D print process. The company received nearly $3.9 million in 2023 through the Proposition 123 Affordable Housing Financing Fund to expand its presence in Colorado.
The company planned to build a nearly $2 million, 20,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in the town of Bennett. Those plans have since stalled due to permitting issues. Gene Eidelman, Azure’s co-founder, said the company is looking at other sites in Bennett and throughout the state, and expects the plant to open by the end of the year. —Justyna Tomtas
Read more: California company expanding 3D house printing to near Denver metro-area
Johns Manville
Denver-based Johns Manville manufactures premium-quality building and specialty products. The Berkshire Hathaway company has been in business since 1858 and moved to downtown Denver in 1988. It manufactures insulation, commercial roofing and fibers, along with nonwovens for commercial, industrial and residential applications.
The company has annual sales of over $4 billion, its website states. Johns Manville employs 8,000 people and operates in 43 North American and European locations.
Its technical center in Littleton operates as a research and development facility for product development and its quality assurance program, while its global headquarters in Denver focus on finance, information technology, supply chain, human resources and legal services. —Justyna Tomtas
Read more: Fortune 500 company decides to keep its HQ in downtown Denver
Scythe Robotics
Scythe Robotics, founded in 2018 by Jack Morrison, Davis Foster and Isaac Roberts, makes self-driving electric lawnmowers at its 28,000-square-foot factory in Longmont. The Scythe’s flagship mower, the M.52, weighs roughly 1,100 pounds and uses a plethora of sensing and pattern recognition devices to chop down lawns.
The Longmont facility, which completed its expansion from 11,000 square feet to 28,000 last year, could build up to 500 machines by this year, Morrison, also Scythe’s CEO, told the Denver Business Journal in 2024. At the time, Scythe had 6,500 pre-orders from 80 customers in Colorado, Texas and Florida, Morrison said. Customers will lease the mowers, paying Scythe per mow. —Jackson Guilfoil
Read more: Longmont startup doubles production facility to make more self-driving, electric lawn mowers
True Anomaly
True Anomaly builds satellites and software used to train the U.S. Space Force to fight in orbit. The company was founded by Even Rogers, now its CEO, and Kyle Zakrzewski, now chief engineering officer.
A pair of the company’s Jackal satellites were launched into low orbit on SpaceX’s Transporter-10 last March, but True Anomaly lost contact and couldn’t complete mission objectives, according to the company. Regardless, the Space Force awarded True Anomaly a $30 million contract to work on the Victus Haze program, which tests the nation’s ability to quickly launch satellites, in April 2024.
In February, the company announced it would expand to a 90,000-square-foot factory in Long Beach, California, though it remains headquartered in Centennial. It previously announced it would expand to 190 employees by the end of 2024. —Jackson Guilfoil
Read more: Local space company adds factory in California
FOOD & DRINK
Celestial Seasonings
Boulder-based Celestial Seasonings has crafted specialty teas since the company was founded in 1969. The company is part of the Hain Celestial Group and offers more than 90 tea varieties that are blended in Boulder.
“As the original herbal tea company, we started an entirely new way of thinking about tea,” the company’s website states. “In a way, we started a movement — a shift towards healthier, happier little moments carved into ever-busier days.”
Most of the herbs, botanicals, teas and fruits are purchased directly from farmers across the world, the company’s website states. Its factory, at 4600 Sleepytime Drive, in Boulder, takes those raw ingredients and turns it into the finished products. —Justyna Tomtas
Read more: Good Works: Celestial Seasonings’ bike ride raises funds
Flatiron Pepper Co.
Co-workers and self-described “pizza fanatics” Mike Chen and Matt Lenore set out to shake up how red pepper flakes — the ones often tossed onto pizza or pasta — were made.
The duo learned “red pepper” flakes could include a variety of different chiles and that the products often didn’t disclose which specific peppers were used.
They founded Arvada-based Flatiron Pepper Co. in 2017 and began developing pepper flake blends to achieve “distinct flavor and heat profiles,” according to the company’s website. Today, Flatiron sources chile peppers from around the world and processes and bottles the flakes at its Arvada facility.
Flatiron products range from a four-pepper blend to a Hatch Valley green blend. The company’s shakers also offer Scoville scale rankings and fitting names, such as “I Can’t Feel My Face” and “Green Ghost.” —Cassidy Ritter
Ready Foods
Chipotle, Noodles & Co. and Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard all have one secret ingredient in common — they work with Denver-based Ready Foods, a food purveyor that’s been around since 1972.
The company began by selling a line of Mexican food to American restaurants that wanted to offer Taco Tuesday specials, said Marco Antonio Abarca, whose parents founded Ready Foods. When Abarca took over as CEO in 1992, he pivoted Ready Foods to a business that makes soups, sauces, beans, salsas, pad thai and pasta for restaurants, hospitals and hotels.
Ready Foods now has five manufacturing facilities in Denver, totaling 353,500 square feet.
In September, the company opened its newest facility near Interstate 25 and Interstate 70. Using robots at this facility has allowed Ready Foods to double the amount of food it makes with half the people, Abarca said. —Cassidy Ritter
Western Sugar Cooperative
A sugar manufacturer in Northern Colorado has a history dating back to the early 20th century, when Charles Boettcher and his partners formed the Great Western Sugar Co.
The company traded hands multiple times over the years, and in April 2002, a group of growers and other shareholders purchased it and changed its name to Western Sugar Cooperative, according to its website.
Today, about 700 beet growers and shareholders grow the beets and deliver them to Western Sugar’s 43 receiving stations, per the website. Processing facilities in Fort Morgan, Wyoming, Nebraska and Montana turn the root vegetable into granulated, powdered, light brown and dark brown sugar.
Western Sugar employs more than 1,000 workers and reports annual sales that exceed $500 million with customers ranging from food processors, retailers and food service businesses, according to its website. —Cassidy Ritter
