Mother Parkers
Mother Parkers
Mother Parkers
Location
Fort Worth, TX
The winner of the 19th Annual “New Plant of the Year” competition, sponsored by Food
Winner of Food Engineering
Magazine’s 19th Annual “New Engineering Magazine, is a $25-million coffee roasting facility designed, engineered and
Plant of the Year” Competition constructed by The Austin Company. The highly-automated plant, located in Fort Worth,
Texas, is owned by Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee, Inc., Canada’s top private-brand
coffee supplier.
Mother Parkers selected The Austin Company’s facility location group, Austin Consulting,
to conduct a study to determine the best location for the proposed facility. After
thoroughly analyzing more than 20 states — taking into consideration critical factors
such as transportation, utilities, labor and taxes — the
group pinpointed Fort Worth, Texas. Not only is Fort
Worth a transportation hub, but Texas ports are also
highly-efficient in importing green coffee beans. These
location attributes offer Mother Parkers the flexibility it
needs to expand its U.S. market as demand for its
products grows.
The building layout supports a highly-efficient production flow, beginning with bean
receiving at three recessed truck docks. The beans move to silo storage and a cleaning
room, through coffee roasting and grinding operations, to packaging systems in the
center of the building, and finally to the rack warehouse.
The product is ultimately shipped from four truck docks located in the warehouse. The
layout was designed to allow for easy expansion — certain walls are constructed of
metal siding and can be readily moved to provide for future expansion needs.
A unique color scheme highlights the importance of each area within the plant. The tiled
floor surrounding the roaster and grinders reinforces this concept. A state-of-the-art
control room is centrally located in the main building. It features wall-to-wall windows
for a view of major operations. The control room is complete with desktop computer
control stations. A multimedia wall allows a single operator to monitor and control all
plant operations, including raw material storage, coffee production and packaging.