From its earliest days in downtown Concord, S&D Coffee Inc. has been an innovator. The company sells its coffee, tea, specialty drinks and beverage products to more than 70,000 customers, including hotels, restaurant chains, colleges and universities, large institutional users, vending suppliers and offices, throughout the United States. McDonald's USA named S&D its 2007 Supplier of the Year. With four facilities in Cabarrus County handling everything from product development to production and distribution, the company is looking to grow its market share while also expanding its local footprint, says Ron Hinson, president and chief executive officer.
  
Q: What’s next for S&D here in Concord?
 
A: We are about to need a larger, multipurpose facility, and most likely it will be here. Our local officials work with us well and want to keep us here, so we’re not looking to move away. We have been able to grow very successfully from here, and believe we can continue to do so.
 
Q. What goes on at S&D’s existing facilities here, and how are they expanding their operations?

A.: We manufacture coffee in one facility, and it takes care of our business across the United States because of the way we’ve upfitted it. We also have our tea facility here, and that’s now our fastest-growing segment. That’s why soon we’ll need a facility for coffee and tea to handle the growth.

We also have a new, 20,000-square-foot extract facility to make our iced coffee and cappuccino ingredients, and also are working with people like Coca-Cola in that part of our business. That involves some secrecy, so we put it on the backside of our annex building and gave those labs their own separate entrance. It’s a very exciting thing for us to be getting into in terms of what it can do for our future.