LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – Westrock Coffee Holdings LLC is going public via a partnership with Riverview Acquisition Corp., which values the company at $1 billion.
The deal will allow Westrock Coffee to accelerate the build-out of the United States’ largest roasting to ready-to-drink facility, as well as the company’s further expansion into Europe, the Asia-Pacific region and the Middle East, the company said.
Upon close of the transaction, the combined company will be named Westrock Coffee Co. and is expected to be listed on the Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “WEST” and begin trading in third-quarter 2022.
“We started Westrock Coffee when we saw the need for coffee farmers in Rwanda to earn a living wage and realized that a new business model for the industry could enable this outcome while being self-sustaining and unreliant on the vagaries of charity or consumer price premiums,” said Scott Ford, CEO and co-founder of Westrock Coffee. “Our mission to positively impact the coffee, tea, flavors, extracts and ingredients market from crop to cup has proven to be both enormously successful and gratifying.”
R. Brad Martin, CEO of Memphis, Tenn.-based Riverview, said, “I’ve long admired the Ford family, and because of my respect for them, I approached them about the possibility of partnering with Riverview. The intense customer, commercial and mission focus of the Westrock team has built a terrific business over the last 13 years, and now the company is poised for a very promising future.”
The Westrock management team will be the largest equity owners in the company, he added.
In March, Little Rock, Ark.-based Westrock Coffee Co. and subsidiary S&D Coffee & Tea announced a unified rebrand for a new visual identity as one organization, Westrock Coffee, reinforcing both organizations’ shared commitment to build and efficiently operate an integrated coffee, tea and extracts supply chain, the company said.
“The brand isn’t just about a new logo and its associated colors, our brand is what we live out every day, and this visual shift signals our uncompromising commitment to the people who power us,” Ford said. “As we look to introduce our organization to more and more customers around the world, we realize a greater opportunity to accelerate our mission as one, and the need for brand continuity is paramount to our success.”
In 2020, Westrock Coffee acquired S&D, combining the private-label retail coffee supplier with the foodservice coffee, tea and extracts provider. The combined company is preparing for future growth under the Westrock Coffee name and recently announced expansion of its global coffee, tea and extracts development, manufacturing and packaging facilities in central Arkansas, Concord, N.C., and Johor Bahru, Malaysia.
A new logo will appear in all mediums and collateral, including building signage, fleet branding, social media platforms and traditional and digital communications. To coincide with the rebrand, Westrock Coffee has launched a redesigned website.
“Our unified brand brings new life and opportunity to our growing organization, allowing us to focus on more transparency for the people that power us and streamline our supply chain for the betterment of our farmer partners and our valued customers,” Ford said.
Westrock Coffee provides more than 20 million cups of coffee to the world daily, it said. The company is also the largest custom and private-label coffee and tea provider to restaurants in the United States by volume and the second largest coffee extract provider in ready-to-drink coffee.Westrock Coffee sources from more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers in 35 countries.
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