BRUNSWICK – After beating out nearly 1,000 other businesses to make it all the way to the final round of Forbes.com’s “Boost Your Business” contest, Brunswick-based Simply Divine Brownies learned this week that it lost the $100,000 grand prize.

But company President Meggen Beaulier said she and her mother, CEO Trina Beaulier, are pleased with how well their fledgling company did in the national competition. Although Forbes.com would not say who the runners-up were, Meggen Beaulier said they were told they placed high in the contest.

For that, the brownie company got a new computer system valued at $6,000, Beaulier said.

“It’s not the $100,000, but you have to figure we got so much in advertising and publicity. And, plus, we really got to present ourselves in front of a really distinguished panel,” she said. “It really helped us to really kind of change the face of our company.”

Trina Beaulier came up with the idea for a gourmet brownie business in the fall of 2004. Using her own brownie recipe – fine-tuned after taste-test parties with friends – she started the business in her kitchen. Less than two months later she had so many orders she had to move operations to the second floor in Mill 2 of Fort Andross in Brunswick.

The company has been featured on NBC’s “Today Show,” Al Roker’s “Roker on the Road” and the Food Network. Its brownies have also popped up on the “Rachael Ray Show” and in celebrity goodie bags at the Oscars.

Simply Divine Brownies applied for the Forbes.com contest in hopes of winning enough money to produce, package and market a line of ready-to-bake frozen brownies. The company beat out nearly 1,000 other applicants, landing first in the top 20 and then in the top five. Last month, the Beauliers traveled to New York to present their business plan to a panel of judges.

The grand prize award was based 50 percent on the judges’ votes and 50 percent on the votes of Forbes.com visitors, Editor Brett Nelson said.

Although Simply Divine Brownies did not place first – that honor went to Recycline Inc., a Waltham, Mass.-based company that makes environmentally friendly consumer products – Meggen Beaulier said she and her mother were pleased with how they performed. They were also honored by the support they got from Maine people.

At one point, Beaulier said, Gov. John Baldacci called the radio show she was on to rave about the company.

“I don’t know a lot of people who got endorsements like that,” she said.

Although Simply Divine Brownies lost the $100,000, it still plans to produce a frozen product line.

“We’re probably just going to have to start out a little smaller,” Beaulier said.