Jay Bartkowski takes 74-year-old business with father and grandfather still on board
The International Falls Coca-Cola Bottling Company Inc. is a family owned business that spans more than seven decades and three generations.
Jay Bartkowski, the son of owner James Bartkowski, and grandson of founding owner John Bartkowski, ended a 20-year accounting career to take over the business this past July.
"We're excited to come back and are hoping to help the town grow," said Jay Bartkowski. "That is a strategy for us as well."
Prior to joining the company, Bartkowski, a certified public accountant, was a partner in the Twin Cities Tax Group and Litigation Support Group with Virchow Krause for seven years. He worked with Lund, Koehler, Cox and Company until its merger with Virchow Krause. He served as an expert witness and consultant, and spoke as an authority on family law topics to state agencies.
Bartkowski graduated from St. John's University in 1987, with a degree in accounting. In addition to his work at Coca-Cola Bottling, he coaches youth sports and serves as a member of the board of directors of the International Falls Chamber of Commerce.
Spouse and co-owner, Julie (Cowlishaw) Bartkowski, an attorney, works at Rainy River Community College. They were both raised in International Falls.
More than the call to run the family business empire, Bartkowski said simply that it was good to return to a place to raise their three sons, John, 14, and twins, Jack and Jared, 11, where they have roots and family. He has been gone for 20 years but says the business was never far away and enjoyed getting to know all of the customers and store owners over the years.
In his career as an accountant, Bartkowski learned a lot about how businesses succeeded and failed. He brings the kind of experience that a company needs during a time of great change and opportunity. Although pop sales haven't exactly dropped, he says they are no longer growing at the rates of past years. Consumers are turning away from carbonated beverages and toward vitamin water, tea and juices.
On the beer side, consumers are moving away from the major brands and toward the specialty brews, micro-breweries and flavored or imported beer.
"There is an explosion of different products in this industry," he said. "The challenge is to keep up with all the products."
The products the company presently distributes include: Barq's, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Schweppes Brands, both Chippewa and Dasani waters, Evian waters, Powerade, Nestea, MinuteMaid Juices, Squirt, along with several Anheuser-Busch and Miller beer products.
"There are more mature tastes in this market place," he said. "We need to keep retailers interested in working with our products."
History
The Bartkowski success story is about longevity and how the owners have expanded into other business and their community involvement. They survived as other local bottling competitors eventually consolidated into larger organizations and moved away.
John Bartkowski received an eighth grade education and made his way as a forward thinking business visionary, founding the Falls Bottling Company in 1934 at the age of 20 in International Falls, said his son, James. The company moved to a number of locations and bottled several flavored colas before acquiring Pepsi in 1939. As the Falls Bottling Works, they bought the Coca-Cola franchise in 1945. At one time or another the company bottled many beers, from Grain Belt, Blatz, Schmidt, Miller and the Anheuser-Busch brands.
In 1959, the company moved to what is now its current location at 1300 Industrial Ave. The family changed the name to the Coca-Cola Bottling Company of International Falls in 1961. John was also a major commercial and residential developer over the years and, together with his wife Amelia (married 70 years), owned more than 10 businesses. Now at 92 and still active, this living city founder still follows the stock market each morning and keeps up with the issues of the company business.
"A lot of people don't realize how long we have been here," said James Bartkowski, John’s son, who remained a co-owner with his sister Joyce, until they sold interest in the company to Jay and Julie Bartkowski in 2007.
James Bartkowski began working in the company soon after graduating with a degree in business administration from St. John's College in 1963. He oversaw the addition of factory space and sold off the soda bottling equipment to become a distribution center in 1998.
It was quite a project to use a returnable bottle system, and the weight alone made the distribution a real chore. There were many bottling companies that simply shut down or consolidated at this point.
The bottles to cans transition was the biggest in the company's history, according to John, who said the canning operation requires fewer and larger facilities. The packaging is handled by Stock Keeping Unit that automatically fill multiple orders of different quantities and types of items. "A canning plant can produce 1,200 cans a minute," he said.
It took the bottlers out of the process, and he said the company continued bottling the plastics until it wasn't cost-effective. The company adapted and become a distribution center for the products.
James said it’s difficult to see long-term in the business. Just 25 years ago the light beers were beginning to appear and he did not dream they would be the top selling products today. He said changes with pop are with the large variety of products, bottle and can sizes and packaging.
"Energy drinks were not even around five years ago," he said. "If someone had told me there would be money in bottled water, I would have said they were nuts. Now, it is a huge part of our business. It is amazing how things have changed."
John noted that the current challenges are with keeping the cost to consumers as low as possible, as the price of raw materials (sugar, fuel, aluminum and the oil used in making plastics) continue to rise.