Westrock Acquires Bixby Coffee to Enter ‘Influencer-Led Brand Space’
Westrock Coffee Company has acquired Los Angeles-based Bixby Coffee Roasters, giving the former an opening into “the emerging influencer-led brand space” as well as further growth for its omni-channel offerings.
Terms of the deal, which includes Bixby’s California roasting facility, were not disclosed. Bixby co-founders Miles Fisher and Remington Hotchkis, who started the company in 2017, will join Westrock’s senior management team as SVP of sales and VP of sales, respectively.
“[Westrock] continue to grow with their impressive customer base and look to serve their customers not only through traditional private brand offerings but also through the creation of products for specific customer segments and influencer-based brands,” Fisher said. “With the resources and momentum that Westrock Coffee brings, we are ready to get to work and fuel the product development and e-commerce offerings of the Company.”
One of Bixby’s most notable influencer relationships is with Chamberlain Coffee, for which it serves as the brand’s roaster and producer. A spokesperson for Chamberlain confirmed Bixby owns a small minority stake in the brand, but did not confirm if that ownership stake was included in the transaction
Fisher himself is a notable influencer and actor, with 489,000 followers on Instagram. On TikTok, he performs “deep fake” videos as Tom Cruise under the account DeepTomCruise, which has 5.1 million followers.
“The emergence of influencer-led brands has created a new sales channel in the beverage business, and Bixby is at the forefront of its development,” said Elizabeth McLaughlin, EVP of sales of Westrock Coffee. “Miles and Remington bring a depth of knowledge on these emerging channels that we are adding to the Westrock Coffee portfolio, including the co-creation of new influencer brands that are particularly appealing to young consumers.”
Bixby also is the roaster behind the “Cup of Joe” coffee sachets gifted to remote delegates at Democratic National Convention in 2020.
Founded in 2009, Westrock is a coffee, tea, flavors, extracts, and ingredients provider to brands and retailers. The company went public last year via a SPAC, merging with Riverview Acquisition Corp, and now trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol “WEST.” Westrock closed at $11.18 a share yesterday, slightly down from its high of $13.91 a share in December 2022.
At the ICR conference last month, Westrock CEO and co-founder Scott Ford shared that “the younger generation is drinking more coffee per capita than my generation.” Meanwhile, he added, coffee companies want to focus on marketing, operations and sales rather than managing production as well.
“Businesses wanted to get out of manufacturing, they wanted to own brands, run brands…. [and] they all want the scale benefit of concentrating what is essentially a commodity processing business with some very highly technical food science expertise that has to be wrapped around it,” Ford said. “We happen to be one of the only four or five people that can provide high quality extracts at the volume that these companies need anywhere in the world.”
