Westrock Coffee Reports Mixed Q1 With Rising Sales, Wider Losses

(Westrock Coffee)

Westrock Coffee Co. of Little Rock (Nasdaq: WEST) reported a $27.2 million loss Thursday for its quarter that ended March 31, a wider loss from its loss of $23.7 million in the same quarter in 2024. 

The publicly traded coffee, tea and extracts company said net sales were $213.8 million for the quarter, an increase of 11.1% compared with the same quarter a year ago. 

Scott T. Ford, Westrock CEO and co-founder, said the company was off to a great start and expects continued growth. 

In the company’s Conway extract and ready-to-drink manufacturing plant, “we are making great progress as we scale-up the sales volume throughput in the facility,” he said. 

He said the launch of the company’s second single serve cup facility in Conway “has exceeded our expectations.”

“We have customers who are now lining up for any day that we might be down with someone else if they can take that slot,” Ford said. “So our demand is at least as strong as we have forecast.”

He said the company has added cost control measures and customers. 

Westrock opened its $315 million, 570,000-SF plant in June 2024. 

“The single most important element driving this performance is the commercial launch of our two new Conway, Arkansas, manufacturing facilities, the often mentioned country’s largest roast to extract [ready-to-drink] facility is literally leaping to life in front of our eyes as we have begun commercial quantity production runs for many of our new customers in this facility in the past 45 days,” Ford said.

And the company also has launched its second single serve cup manufacturing facility in part of its Conway Distribution Center complex. 

“Fortunately, this startup of this plant has gone seamlessly, as we have over 200 people that work in our original single serve plant,” Ford said. 

The Conway plants have more than 1 million SF and can produce and distribute hundreds of millions of RTD cans, glass bottles and multiserve bottles, along with ultimately, billions of single serve cups each year, Ford said. “We remain convinced that consumer driven shifts taking place in the coffee and related beverage market are going to create immense return opportunities for a few companies while stagnating others.”

The company’s stock was trading at $6.15 Thursday afternoon. Its closing price on Wednesday was $6.10. Over the past 12 months, shares were down more than 42%.

Westrock’s beverage solutions segment generated $164.1 million in sales in the first quarter, an increase of 3.8% from the same quarter in 2024.

Its sustainable sourcing & traceability segment generated $49.7 million in sales in the quarter, an increase of 44.4% from the same period last year. 

Ford said that both the the beverage solutions and SS&T segments  adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization should total between $27.5 million and $34 million for the first half of the year, an increase of about 25% over the prior year, “and track to be between $75 and $88 million for the full year.” 

Meanwhile, Westrock’s EBITA for the quarter was $8.2 million and included a $3.3 million of scale-up costs tied to its Conway plant, a tumble from $11.1 million from the same quarter a year ago.