SUNBURY, Pa. — Employees at Fresh Roasted Coffee LLC were busy roasting and bagging coffee. The company roasts, packs, and ships fresh coffee out of its warehouse in Sunbury.
"Big box stores are calling, and we're shipping stuff really all over the country. We're doing 30, 40, 50,000 orders a month sometimes," Owner Andy Oakes said.
Andy Oakes started Fresh Roasted Coffee in Selinsgrove in 2011. Newswatch 16 stopped by the facility when Oakes had just a handful of employees. The coffee company is expanding for the second time because its 25,000-square-foot warehouse is not big enough.
"Our business grew, honestly, until the end of the year last year, about 48%," Oakes said.
Recently, Oakes bought a section of the former Sunbury Textile Mills property.
"It's probably about three times the size that we are currently in," Oakes said.
The larger space will allow the company to buy coffee in bulk and store more than one million pounds.
Oakes says the cost of products is rising, and availability is limited, partly because of the pandemic.
"The only way you could do these things was order a full trailer of that particular material just to be able to get it in," Oakes said.
Oakes also plans to get two more coffee roasters as well as a new K-Cup machine. He hopes to move into the new building in August.