Coffee and tea firm Finlays invests millions in new Hull factory

The site is located next to Finlays Europe’s tea decaffeination facility in Hull and will allow the company to supply bulk concentrate, ready-to-drink (RTD) cans and bag-in-box through ambient and refrigerated supply chain networks.

The company said the facility would be able to handle a wide variety of packaging formats and would serve customers in Europe.

The UK cold brew coffee market was in strong growth, with annual sales hitting £56m in 2020 and was set to mirror growth in the US, where annual cold brew sales were now worth close to £1bn, according to Finlays. The business claims to be the US cold brew market leader.

'Explosive growth in US'​

“After explosive growth in the US, we believe we are about to see the same thing happen in Europe,"​ said Ian Bryson, managing director at Finlays Europe. “Our new extraction facility is about helping beverage brand owners across foodservice, B2B and retail tap into the cold brew opportunity by allowing us to manufacture in a flexible range of formats and being able to develop bespoke solutions.”​

The cold brew process produces a smooth, naturally sweet flavour profile that is perceived to be less acidic than coffee brewed with hot water. Coffee beans are steeped in room-temperature water for several hours to produce concentrate that can be used for a variety of food and beverage applications. 

The Hull factory will produce pure cold brew coffee from beans freshly roasted at Finlays' roastery in nearby Pontefract, West Yorkshire. The company creates tailored blends which are optimally extracted using the unique filtered water process and do not contain soluble coffee.

Founded in 1750​

Founded in 1750 and headquartered in London, Finlays has been sourcing tea since 1817 and producing it since the 1870s. Finlays Europe, which includes Finlay Beverages, is one of the region’s largest processors and packers of tea and coffee, with 117 years’ experience in tea and 111 in coffee.

As well as packed tea and coffee, the business supplies tea, coffee and botanical extracts to support the development of iced, RTD and cold brew teas and coffees across Europe.

In addition to its Hull factory, the company already operates two major coffee extraction facilities in North America and has a strong presence in Asia.

Finlay Beverages Limited is a subsidiary of James Finlay Limited, which is owned by John Swire & Sons Limited, a global conglomerate active in areas such as food and beverage, property, aviation and marine services.