The country’s largest blender of iced tea for the food services industry, S&D Coffee and Tea, is expanding dramatically this year. They have embarked upon a $48 million construction project that will result in two new facilities in Concord, N.C. and will add 200 new jobs over the next five years. The new buildings will offer S&D more production space for their tea, coffee, and extracts business lines.
Concord actively pursued keeping the company local. S&D opened in 1927 in Charlotte and moved to Concord two years later. Representatives from S&D stated that the siting allowed them to maintain a strong connection to their existing headquarters, but also allowed for some redundancies and geographic separation that is beneficial in terms of managing risk.
S&D is a large player in both the tea and coffee sectors, serving 90,000 customers annually. The company operates 38 warehouses and distributions centers. In addition to their sizable tea business, they are the country’s largest custom coffee roaster. The company has also been aggressive in pursuing new product sectors. In 2010, they created a new production unit for Food Innovations and Ingredients. This unit focuses on creating extracts of coffee, tea and botanicals. These are then used to flavor products such as ice cream, energy drinks, and desserts.
S&D currently supplies coffee and tea to McDonalds, Dunkin Donuts, Krispie Kreme, and to the U.S. military. Plans are in the works to introduce McDonalds McCafe ground coffee in grocery stores in early 2014.
S&D plans to open the new 52,000 sq. ft. roasting and packaging facility in August 2014.
Source: S&D Coffee and Tea