Dive Brief:

• Minneapolis-based Aspen Waste Systems, a privately owned family waste and recycling hauling company, recently expanded into the Denver metro region.
• The company focuses on organic growth through customer service and sales instead of through acquisitions, a business model that differentiates it from others in the region, said President Alexa Kircher Fang. It also does not own disposal sites.
• The Denver market is Aspen Waste’s first location outside of the Midwest. The company operates six other locations throughout Minnesota, Missouri, Illinois and Iowa.

Dive Insight:

Aspen Waste is breaking into a competitive Denver-area market that has seen consolidation in recent years due to acquisitions from major waste companies. Aspen sees itself as a new choice, especially as Colorado prepares for major waste and recycling changes under its extended producer responsibility for packaging law. 

The company enters the Denver-area market just as Colorado-based companies like Apex Waste Solutions, a portfolio company of private equity firm Kinderhook Industries, announced it was expanding through two acquisitions to make it a vertically integrated company. Aspen, on the other hand, has chosen to grow organically.

“We've been watching the Denver market for some time now,” Kircher Fang said. “It's a thriving metro area, and it's seen so much significant growth, but we also know it's a community that values choice and independent, family-owned operators, so that makes it attractive to us.”

Aspen Waste started in 1990 as founder Robert Kircher’s single-truck operation in Minneapolis. The company now employs 350 people throughout its entire Midwest and Colorado footprint.

Aspen’s overall hauling services are about 80% commercial and 20% residential, which the company expects to continue in the Denver market. That commercial focus has been a key strength for the company, in part because “we are consultants for a lot of situations, not just selling service,” said Thor Nelson, Aspen’s CFO. “We want to be the expert that helps customers when they're building a new building or adding sites or have a complicated situation that isn't obvious to everyone except the building owner.”

Aspen Waste also aims to grow its reputation for personable customer service. “A lot of companies have outsourced customer service, but we feel really strongly that it needs to be local,” Kircher Fang said. “Your sales representative is your contact from the beginning and throughout the entire relationship. They answer the phone, they're there.”

Aspen has about 240 total trucks in its fleet, with about six in the new Colorado market. The company invests in new trucks often. “The image is really important to us that we have new, clean, well-maintained trucks. Because we don’t acquire companies, we can really keep those standards up,” she said. 

The company typically uses commercial trucks from Heil that include a Mack chassis. Aspen Waste’s residential trucks are automatic side loader models. Each truck also includes scales that can weigh material and provide customers with sustainability data tailored to their diversion rate goals.

“With a lot of these new laws aimed at improving diversion rates, this is meant to really be an educational tool. I think this is another opportunity for growth,” Kircher Fang said.

Aspen is also building relationships with the other major waste companies in the Denver region. 

Aspen Waste does not own any disposal sites — another function of its focus on customer service and sales, Nelson said. Aspen will work with numerous companies to find landfill, transfer station and MRF space based on factors such as cost efficiency and location. 

Kircher Fang expects to use sites owned or managed by Republic Services, WM and Waste Connections, as well as two independent transfer stations. Waste Connections also recently announced it was building its first Colorado MRF in the Denver region.

Aspen Waste also expects more options to open up as the years go on, especially due to Colorado’s EPR for packaging law and a related needs assessment that called for numerous updates to state recycling infrastructure.Minnesota, Aspen's home state, also passed its own EPR for packaging law this year.

“We see that as something we will be able to help our customers with in both markets,” Kircher Fang said.