In a bid to capture more of the growing market for cold coffee, Mother Parkers Tea & Coffee recently opened a new facility alongside its existing operations.

It is housed inside the company’s 320,000-square-foot facility in Mississauga, Ont.

“It brings all of coffee sourcing, roasting, extraction, aseptic processing, and product development; packaging into a commercial scale manufacturing together on an integrated platform, which makes it very unique, both in Canada and North America,” Bryan McCourt, chief commercial officer at Mother Parkers, said to FoodNX in an interview.

For the company, which was founded in 1912, opening this new processing production will help it reach a new category of coffee lovers. Its first production run was at the end of May and first sales were in June, according to McCourt.

“Our core business . . . is obviously hot coffee, and a lot of our legacy has been built on that . . . (but) customers are starting to look for ways to participate in the cold coffee growth . . . a lot of the younger consumers are moving towards cold coffee, and we wanted to be able to provide that solution to their customers or to consumers.”

Growth in popularity for newer coffee category

The company invested $33.4 million for the new production operation, while the Ontario government provided Mother Parkers with $5 million for the project, which was announced in 2023.

It’s part of a “multi-year, multimillion-dollar investment” that the company is making in the future, McCourt said.

Mother Parkers manufactures coffee and tea for branded and private label customers, and produces its own brands, such as Higgins & Burke Tea and Martinson Coffee, and partners with brands like Marley Coffee. It will now try to tap into a new market with the liquid coffee extracts facility.

According to Circana’s CREST data, cited by Mother Parkers in a press release, quick-service restaurants served almost a quarter of their total coffee sales as a cold beverage in 2025, which is two percentage points higher than 2024.

The Coffee Association of Canada’s coffee data trends study pegged growth in cold coffee as 21 per cent of past-day (yesterday) cups consumed in December 2024, up from 10 per cent from 2023.

McCourt said he is embracing cold coffee, which is a new habit for many Canadians. “I have expanded my cold coffee consumption more. I’m more of a cold person in the afternoon, but I would say one of the biggest reasons for cold coffee is the ability to customize,” he said.

That ability to choose different options when ordering is what makes cold coffee so attractive to younger demographics, he added.

“What we know is that over 90 per cent of cold coffee is modified in some way with sweeteners, dairy or non-dairy creamers, as well as flavours.”

As well, its popularity on social media is also driving new growth, according to McCourt.

“It also seems to photograph a little bit better, so it’s built for TikTok and Instagram. We really see that 18 to 24 (demographic has) more than half of their coffee servings cold.”

Cold coffee also offers those younger consumers the ability to consume it in different formats, he said.

“For example, (restaurants) are able to offer not only a cold coffee; cold brew or iced coffee but they’re also able to use it in espresso martinis. It’s really the right time to expand because it gives us a new product offering for multiple day occasions and multiple customer channels, such as bar and grills, that may have used our product as an add-on.”

Aiming for restaurants, convenience, event locations

Mother Parkers is hoping to offer its new cold coffee products to a wide range of customers.

“Broad food service is the immediate opportunity, including full-serve restaurants, quick-serve restaurants; convenience, as well as event locations: amusement parks, seasonal openings, golf and ski resorts, those types of places that want this product on demand and easy to use,” McCourt said.

The firm will “also be expanding into grocery in both U.S. and Canada as a multi-serve product as well,” where it hopes to offer private label offerings to those types of retailers.

With the new product, Mother Parkers hopes to offer an easy experience for restaurants and other facilities.

“Because a lot of the current iced coffee in the marketplace is brewed at the operator level, which can take between 16 to 24 hours . . .  rather than having a concentrated solution that they can simply mix with water and pour over ice,” McCourt said.

High interest from customers

Although the facility is now fully operational, the company had to contend with strong consumer interest during the construction phase, he said.

“While it was being built, we were just biting at the bit to be able to start serving the market because we had customers asking, ‘When’s it ready?’ and these things just take time to build correctly.”

Early business is brisk, he said. “We’ve got customers from B.C. all the way to P.E.I. now using our product, and that’s only been the last two months.”