Few companies have less in common than Twin City Foods and and Alturas Analytics.

Twin City Foods processes peas and other agricultural commodities. It is demolishing its Lewiston operations after shifting them to its plants in Washington state. The other is a thriving high tech Moscow business that had its best profit ever in 2009 in spite of the stumbling economy. It develops tests to determine concentrations of drugs in parts of the human body such as hair, skin or blood.   

But together the stories I did about them in recent weeks reveal a lot about what’s happening in the economy.  Read the Twin Cities Food story here. Read the Alturas Analytics story here.

Twin City Foods closed its Lewiston plant because it found it could do the same work in other locations without having as many employees. That’s a well documented trend in manufacturing.  Last year the Tribune ran an Associated Press story that talked about how the United States remains a world wide leader in manufacturing.  But it doesn’t seem that way because in many instances the work is done with fewer people as plants have gone high tech.

The people who worked at Twin City Foods either retired or found new work, often, according to my sources, with reduced benefits.

Their circumstances combined with what’s happening at Alturas Analytics make me think that its going to be a lot harder for the United States to get itself out of this economic mess than any politician has acknowledged.

At Alturas Analytics, the company is finding as  specialized and high level as its work is, some of it is going overseas because the costs are cheaper.

 As many of the jobs in traditional  manufacturing disappear, we need to find living wage jobs for people who aren’t rocket scientists. Many economic development specialists, including ones in this area, point to the high tech sector as the part of the economy that will do that.

I have a lot of questions about that strategy. Let’s face it, you can do whatever it is you want to do to a point, but some people,  no matter how hard they try, will never be brain surgeons or even computer technicians capable of doing the tasks new manufacturing systems require. And even in the high tech sector, as Alturas Analytics has found,  there’s no way Americans are going to have employment unless their ideas can consistently compete at the globabl level.

Sore throat. Ear ache. Runny nose.  Fatigue.  I was feeling all those symptoms and more a week ago.

I can handle a cold. My challenge is that my colds frequently turn to sinus infections that no amount of rest or over-the-counter medications will cure. I end up in the doctor’s office being prescribed antibiotics, worried that I’ve finally hit the wall where even the prescription drugs will be useless since I’ve had so many sinus infections.

So last week I went on the offensive as I never have previously.  I cleansed my nasal passages with saline solution from a neti pot. I drank a mixture of a cup of water, and a tablespoon each of organic vinegar and honey.  I soothed my ears with a natural remedy I purchased at Wasem’s.

The approach worked. I’m 100 percent today and I avoided antibiotics. Or did it? It’s possible that the bug I was battling last week was one that would have run its course in the absence of treatment.

My experience points to a number of difficulties we face as a nation as we work through health reform. Everyone agrees that treatments that prevent more serious ailments are good. But how can you really tell if they worked and how much money they’re saving? The latter question is particularly important as we look at how we spend tax payer dollars.

Additionally much as people may think they prefer natural solutions to drugs, there’s a good reason so many of us go to our physicians begging for pills.  They’re convenient.

I’m convinced the neti pot really worked. And I just learned that studies cited at Web MD indicate there’s a scientific basis for its effectiveness. Interestingly, doctors have never mentioned this to me as an option in spite of my clear, chronic history of sinus infections.

But the treatment took about 20 minutes a day, significantly more than taking a tablet. And it was uncomfortable. Every time I used it there was a second that felt similar to how water backs up in your nose when you jump into a pool in the wrong way. There were times when the saline water spilled all over my clothes and that I swallowed a huge amount of it. The vinegar and honey drink tasted a lot like a bad batch of sweet and sour sauce.

Plus our system right now doesn’t do that great a job of awarding the insured for not going to the doctor.  My out-of-pocket expense was about $35, similar to what it would have been for the traditional fix. But I saved my insurance carrier and indirectly my employer money assuming, once again, my approach did what I think it might have.

Still the next time a cold strikes, my new regimen will be my first course of action. The  unpleasantness of the possible cure is not nearly as bad as a sinus infection.

Not long ago I was in a car accident.

I was incredibly lucky.  No one was hurt.  The damage to my car was limited to the hood area. And the driver who backed into me was honest, taking full responsibility for the accident so his insurance handled all the expenses.

The only catch was this:  The car I drive was made in 1990 and so while it still runs well, its blue book value was just enough to buy a really nice motor scooter maybe.

Even the minor repairs it needed threatened to exceed the blue book value. Had that happened, we would have gotten a check from the insurance agency for the blue book value and likely been faced with finding a new car.

Enter Master’s Body Works in Lewiston. They understood what the rules and restrictions of the insurance provider were. They found used parts and then miraculously matched the paint they put on the hood with the color on the rest of the car, which after 20 years is a lot different than when it left the dealer. In short, they saved the car.

Assuming I can avoid getting hit again, the car should run another four years, which is welcome news to our family’s budget.

For new readers to this blog, I occasionally feature examples of outstanding customer service to counter the tendency of people to be more willing to share negative than positive experiences. Feel free to comment about any good experiences you’ve had at regional businesses.

One of the financial analysts listening to a conference call last week about Clearwater Paper’s performance in 2009 (the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley’s largest private employer had a $182 million profit) made an interesting observation.

In the places he shops, he’s noticed the prices have narrowed between brand name and private label toilet paper, facial tissue, paper towels and paper napkins.  One of Clearwater Paper’s three business segments is in the latter category making house-brand tissue products for stores such as Albertsons.

Clearwater Paper’s tissue segment has thrived in the recession as consumers have switched to its products as they watch their budgets more. But obviously its business strategy would have to change considerably if one of its brand-name competitors suddenly started using its tissue manufacturing capacity for the private label market.

The analyst’s question raises a different  hypothetical scenario: What if brand name tissue manufacturers simply started selling their products for less?

Clearwater Paper’s spokesman Matt Van Vleet didn’t know if the pricing the analyst observed was specific to where that analyst shopped or was indicative of a larger trend.

But regardless of what name-brand competitors do, Clearwater Paper would still have advantages, Van Vleet said. 

Unlike Clearwater Paper, companies that make name-brand tissue have huge advertising costs to get the messages about their products to individual consumers, Van Vleet said. 

The supermarkets that buy Clearwater Paper’s  house-brand tissue products like them not just because they give their customers quality at a reasonable prices, but also because they help grocery stores build a customer base, Van Vleet said.  In other words, if customers prefer Albertson’s house brand of toilet paper to any other option, they’re going to be more likely to shop at Albertsons.

If you missed the Tribune’s coverage you can read the stories here and here.

Christine Ermey

Sunday, May 14, 1995

Nostalgic photographs and 1940s and 1950s tractors and other farm equipment will be displayed at Twin City Foods’ 50th anniversary open house.

The family-owned company has operated a plant at Lewiston for 28 years.

In 1943, Arne T. Lervick, with the help of his father, bought an abandoned cannery in Stanwood, Wash., and in 1945, Twin City Foods was incorporated. The name came from West Stanwood and East Stanwood, Wash., where the company originated.

“A lot of people around here think that the company is named for the cities of Lewiston and Clarkston, but that’s not true,” said Jim Jenkins, Lewiston Twin City Foods manager. “It’s named for cities in western Washington.”

The company is still owned and operated by the Lervick family and is now the world’s largest independent processor of frozen peas and cut corn. The Lewiston plant processes, freezes and packages green peas and lima beans.

“We have a contract with area green pea farmers,” said Jenkins. “We harvest, package and freeze the peas, and when we receive orders, we take the peas out of cold storage and put them in the appropriate package.

“We do the same with lima beans, except the lima beans come out of the Columbia River Basin.”

The Lewiston processing plant was constructed in the late 1940s, and changed ownership several times before becoming Twin City Foods.

Jenkins said he was unsure of the original owners of the building, but said it had been owned by Clinton Foods, Minute Maid and Seabrook Farms before Twin City Foods.

In 1946, Twin City Foods employed 100 people and processed 6 million pounds of vegetables. In 1994, the company employed more than 2,200 people and processed nearly 400 million pounds of vegetables.

The development of new technology, such as the polyethylene bag, has changed the frozen vegetable industry and the way the company does business.

Lewiston’s Twin City Foods employs an average of 60 to 75 people year-round. But during the harvesting months of June and July, the numbers swell to 300 to 350 people.

Currently, Twin City Foods owns five food-processing plants with cold storage and distribution centers, and two cold storage and distribution centers with no processing plants in Washington, Idaho and Michigan.