LITTLE ROCK, Ark., USA – Westrock Coffee Holdings, LLC, the nation’s leading integrated coffee, tea, flavors, extracts, and ingredients solutions provider to the retail, foodservice and restaurant, convenience store and travel center, non-commercial account, CPG, and hospitality industries, announced the certification of its Little Rock, Arkansas-based quality lab by the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI).
This certification makes the Little Rock lab one of only five professional-level certified Q Arabica Venues in the country, empowering Westrock Coffee to further support the industry in quality standards and calibrations among Q Graders worldwide
Similar to Westrock Coffee, CQI is known in the industry for their mission to improve the quality of coffee and the lives of people who produce it. In addition to the newly certified lab, Westrock Coffee has aligned with CQI to ensure quality in each cup of coffee produced by encouraging its staff to gain their individual certifications as Q Graders. As of March 2022, Westrock Coffee officially employs more than 30 Q Graders globally.
“Westrock Coffee originated in Rwanda working with a mission to impact farmers’ personal profitability and economic status through improved coffee quality and productivity,” said Kyle Newkirk, EVP of global innovation and insights.
“As we continue to expand our product set and the volume of coffee we bring into our facilities, it is increasingly important that we ensure that the quality we purchase from producing countries meets the needs of our customers.”
He continued, “By adding a Q Venue to our facility, we are able to support the coffee industry as a whole by offering anyone in the industry the opportunity to educate themselves and calibrate with other Q Graders around the world, creating consistency from origin to end product.”
Westrock Coffee’s certified lab affords instructors and students more opportunities to learn and operate in compliance with industry standards and protocols. This in turn supplies the coffee industry with more ways for experts to expand their knowledge and newcomers to experience and learn what quality truly means.
The newly certified lab sits inside Westrock Coffee’s manufacturing facility in North Little Rock where the company provides some of the largest retailers in the world with private label single serve coffee pods. The 86,000 square foot facility is one of eight global manufacturing facilities Westrock Coffee owns and operates to produce more than 20 million cups of coffee daily.
