Business is booming at D-S Beverages in Moorhead, MN

Business is booming at D-S Beverages in Moorhead, and it’s more than just beer that’s responsible for the company’s growth.

In addition to selling and distributing beer for Anheuser-Busch and seven other breweries, D-S Beverages has recently taken a step into the non-alcoholic market with Monster and Shogun energy drinks.

That product diversity has helped D-S Beverages double its business over the past 10 years, according D-S Beverages President Doug Restemayer. As a result, warehouse space has been “extremely tight.”

A $2 million expansion project should help ease some of those constraints.

When construction is complete, most likely at the end of November, the warehouse will take up an entire city block. The 28,500-square-foot, climate-controlled extension will feature several new offices and four loading docks. There could also be room for new employees in the future, Restemayer said.

In the past decade, the company has grown from 27 to 45 employees, according to a company news release.

Three years ago, the original 1946 building at 201 17th St. N. got a minor face-lift, so expansion plans had been on the back burner until recently.

D-S Beverages has about 500 retail accounts to which they sell their beverages. The company sold about 1.6 million cases of beer this year, compared to fewer than 1 million cases sold in earlier years.

Despite the downturn of the economy, the beer business has always been OK, said Sales Manager John Hayes, who has been with D-S for 28 years.

“As a sign of the times, many beer industries are looking to pick up non-alcoholic products” such as energy drinks and nutritional water brands, Hayes said. “There are a lot of beverages out there right now, and that’s why we’re looking to pick up new business.”

Hayes said there are a lot of beverages out there now that weren’t there 10 years ago.

Don Setter Sr., founder of D-S Beverages, said consumers have developed a taste for diversity.

“I don’t know how many different types of water there are out there,” said Don Setter, Sr., 79, founder of D-S Beverages.

D-S Bakery Distributing, a business that sold yeast to breweries, became D-S Beverages in 1968, when Setter decided to jump into the beverage market.

In 1968, the company sold about 67,000 cases of beer and had about 3 percent of the market in the region.

D-S Beverages now has more than 50 percent of the market, Setter said.

D-S Beverages also operates a warehouse in Perham, Minn., that services the lakes market.

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