Largest ready-to-drink coffee facility opens in Arkansas

Westrock Coffee Co. has opened the largest ready-to-drink roasted product manufacturing facility in North America, a 570,000-square-foot facility in Conway, Ark.

The company has invested $315 million, including in a comprehensive beverage development laboratory, with the goal of placing it at the forefront of innovation and production of coffee and ready-to-drink beverages.

The facility features end-to-end robotics and automation, utilizing these techniques from roasting, grinding and extraction to bottling and packaging.

Westrock Coffee is a leading provider of integrated coffee, tea, flavors, extracts and ingredients solutions. Its services include coffee sourcing, supply chain management, product development, roasting, packaging and distribution services to the retail, foodservice, restaurant, convenience stores and travel centers, non-retail accounts, FMCG and hospitality worldwide.

The story of an RTD installation

Westrock Coffee acquired an existing 524,000 square foot facility in December 2021 and redeveloped it into the current facility in a two-phase process. Initial investment costs were $185 million. Later, another $90 million was spent on expanding the factory’s production capacity.

Early last year, the company also began construction of a 530,000-square-foot warehousing and distribution center, located 2 miles from RTD’s facility. The industrial building was commissioned in January on some 30 acres and features a clear height of 36 feet and 72 dock doors.