Kerry’s Bethlehem Plant Adds 22 Million Pounds of Annual Coffee Roasting Capacity

Kerry’s new coffee plant near Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, is built to do more than roast beans: its 48,600 square feet bring roasting, extraction, concentration, blending and packaging together for customers developing coffee based products. The facility can roast 22 million pounds of coffee annually, expanding the company’s North American production capabilities and giving it a dedicated base for work across beverage and food applications.

The new Kerry coffee roasting and extraction plant outside Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. All images courtesy of Kerry.

Kerry opened the facility in September. Its systems cover both hot and cold extraction, allowing the company to make coffee ingredients for ready-to-drink beverages and cold brew as well as frozen desserts and savory sauces. The breadth of that list matters: the plant is intended to serve customers who use coffee in very different forms, not simply buyers seeking roasted coffee.

Roasting is one part of the offer

William Kelly, Kerry North America’s vice president of beverage taste, described the facility’s purpose as joining coffee expertise with the company’s capabilities in taste, applications, nutrition and function. In comments to Daily Coffee News, he said Kerry wants to expand what customers can expect from an ingredient partner. That ambition places product development alongside manufacturing capacity.

At a practical level, bringing roasting and extraction under one roof gives Kerry a platform for producing ingredients that can be blended and packaged for different uses. The source describes the equipment and the intended product categories, but doesn’t specify particular extraction recipes, roast profiles or formats. Those choices will depend on the application a customer is developing. For coffee used in a drink, dessert or sauce, the ingredient’s role in the finished product is the starting point for that work.

Kelly pointed to protein enhanced coffee, energy and hydration drinks, and reduced sugar beverages as areas where the combination of coffee know-how and Kerry’s wider technical resources may open possibilities. These are potential applications, not announced products. The plant’s range of operations gives Kerry tools to pursue them, while the company’s beverage developers and other specialists can work on how coffee fits within a finished formulation.

A new coffee operation on an existing site

The Bethlehem operation started with a site previously run by Martin Bauer Group, a botanical ingredients maker. After that plant ceased operations, Kerry acquired certain assets in April 2025 for €14.8 million, approximately $16.6 million. Kerry retained or repurposed some existing equipment and added roasting and packaging equipment, processing technology and manufacturing protocols for the coffee operation.

The company says the facility currently employs more than 50 people, including workers retained from the former operator. Kelly described the staff as a mix of coffee experts, flavorists, sensory scientists, beverage developers, process engineers and nutrition specialists. That team composition reflects the plant’s stated role: it is intended to support ingredient development as well as production.

For customers, the combination may make it easier to work across several stages of a coffee ingredient project with one supplier. The specific value will depend on what each product needs and what Kerry can produce for it; the announcement doesn’t provide customer names or product launch details. What it does establish is a sizable production base and a team spanning coffee, product development and processing.

Kerry’s coffee experience and wider reach

The Bethlehem plant builds on earlier additions to Kerry’s North American beverage business. Kerry acquired Seattle based flavor syrup maker DaVinci Gourmet in 2003, then added shelf stable coffee extract technology through its 2008 acquisition of X Café, based in Portland, Maine. The new site brings roasting and a wider set of extraction and manufacturing operations into that history.

Founded in Ireland in 1972, Kerry is headquartered in Tralee under Group CEO Edmond Scanlon. The company employs approximately 20,000 people across more than 50 countries and operates 119 manufacturing locations and more than 60 technology and innovation centers. Its portfolio spans taste and nutrition, biotechnology, pharmaceutical applications and health applications.

Kerry plans to use the Pennsylvania facility to develop coffee ingredients for business customers in hot and cold coffee, ready-to-drink products, foodservice and functional beverages. Kelly characterized coffee as an all day category that has grown beyond its traditional morning role. The plant’s combination of roasting, extraction and downstream production gives that broad ambition a concrete base: the next measure will be the ingredients and applications customers develop there.