Lardera Coffee Roasters Opens 80,000-Square-Foot East Rutherford Facility, Moves Roasting In-House

Lardera Coffee Roasters opened an 80,000-square-foot production facility in East Rutherford, New Jersey, bringing roasting toward in-house production and adding a 60-kilogram IMF roaster and large-scale silos. The facility positions Lardera to move away from contract roasting and toward direct control of profiles and volume as it serves retail and wholesale customers.

Production equipment in the new hub includes a 60-kg IMF roaster and coffee silos with capacity for 20 tons of green coffee, plus automated packaging lines. Lardera installed an Effytec horizontal form-, fill- and seal machine to handle retail and wholesale bags, and already operates Fuso equipment for steeped coffee bags and pour-over trays. Tea and coffee trade reporting noted the Effytec line will speed up and lower the cost of creating, filling, and sealing bags for both retail and wholesale customers.

Staffing and leadership for the East Rutherford operation are drawn from the Adagio family. Nick Lin, described as a production manager at sister company Adagio Teas, is serving as head roaster at Lardera’s new facility. Michael Cramer, identified as Lardera’s founder, framed the move as a long-awaited step: “We’ve waited a really long time to legitimize the ‘roaster’ in our name and have big plans to catch up on lost time.” Digital marketing manager Ashley Van Tatenhove added, “Expanding from tea into coffee felt like a natural evolution for us, allowing the same focus on quality, sourcing and craftsmanship to extend into a new category.”

Lardera was established in 2022 and the company intends to complete the transition to its own roasting capacity in the coming weeks. The roaster and silo specifications are explicit, but Lardera has not released a commissioning date, a first-roast date, capital expenditure totals, or staffing headcount for the East Rutherford site. The company’s online product pages already highlight sourcing and transparency with photos and interviews of producers from Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, and Ethiopia.

Product strategy at the new hub includes ongoing retail and wholesale supply plus planned new formats. Company statements and trade reporting note future introductions such as premium concentrates and other formats, suggesting the Effytec packaging line supports broader SKU flexibility beyond bagged coffee. The move into an 80,000-square-foot space also resolves prior constraints Lardera cited, where limited space had kept the brand reliant on outside production roasting while profiles and volumes were developed.

For a company described as a division of Adagio Teas and part of a brand family that includes Masters Teas, Selefina Spices and Adagio Bees, the East Rutherford hub represents a clear verticalization play: a 60-kg IMF roaster, 20-ton silo capacity, and automated packaging give Lardera the physical tools to scale wholesale volumes and test new product formats while claiming greater control over sourcing and roast profiles. The company expects to finish the in-house transition in the coming weeks, and those first production runs will show whether the new equipment and team can translate those plans into consistent supply for retail and wholesale customers.