Green Mountain Coffee has magic touch

Waterbury business charts remarkable growth

By Molly Walsh, Free Press Staff Writer • July 5, 2009

WATERBURY — Five years ago, no one knew quite what to do with the decrepit train station in the center of this small town. Then came local employer Green Mountain Coffee Roasters with a plan to help renovate the 1875 building and lease a portion for a cafe and company visitors center.

The venture proved to be a success, like just about everything the company has done lately, and these days the restored building bustles with coffee-sipping tourists, local residents and passengers waiting for trains that still stop at the station.

At company headquarters just across the tracks, Green Mountain Coffee is brewing a much bigger success story and doing so despite a deep economic recession. Net sales for the second quarter of fiscal year 2009 were up more than 60 percent over the same quarter in 2008, and net income climbed 118 percent. Company stock spiked from $25 a share last June to $93 this June before the company delivered a three-for-two stock split to shareholders.

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