Export to Excel - Specify column datatype

We have a process that is exporting a query to Excel. We're just using the old trick of creating an html table and using cfheader/cfcontent to spit it out as Excel. The problem is that the user wants to do a SUM on one of the columns, but by default the column type is "General" so the sum does not work. They have to convert the column datatype to "Number" and then SUM. Is there an easy way for me to specify that the value is a number when Im creating it in CF so Excel treats the data as a number instead of a string? And I know CF9 has cfspreadsheet. Not an option for me yet.

Thanks