Coffee Worx Growing

Deb Riach of Coffee Worx

Deb and Ian Riach, the founders and owners of Coffee Worx Coffee Roastery are set to expand their now well-established coffee roasting operation.

words: Pattie Pegler images: Supplied

The Riachs opened their Coffee Worx café and roastery in Rangiora in 2013 after expanding their 7-year-old coffee roastery from a warehouse in Christchurch to include their now popular retro industrial style café located on Blackett Street.

Deb and Ian are North Canterbury locals having lived in the area since 1992 when they purchased and ran their first hospitality business, a luxury lodge in Okuku. The couple loved the rural lifestyle and decided to stay when they sold Okuku Country Lodge in 2005. It was in 2006 the Riachs returned to the coffee industry with the purchase of a small boutique coffee roastery which they rebranded as Coffee Worx. The roastery was purchased to support the expansion of their Yellow Rocket Bagels and Coffee franchise which had three outlets, when the earthquakes decimated the chain, and they lost all three outlets in the fateful 2011 disaster.

This left them with just the coffee roastery, so they picked up the pieces from the loss of their retail chain and began again by supplying their premium coffee blends to other cafes and hospitality outlets. Their history in the coffee industry as the original founding partners of Coffee Culture put them in a knowledgeable position to help support new entrants to the industry and after winning several awards with their coffee blends at the NZ Coffee Awards, their fledgling business began to take flight.

Alongside the flagship Coffee Worx brand, the Riachs developed their Heartland Brew Coffee brand to supply Trents foodservice group. The coffee became popular with many small businesses because of its premium quality at a very reasonable price and it became the first ranked coffee through Trents, so they decided to expand its distribution to New World and Pak n Save supermarkets in the South Island. Despite the hardships of the Covid era the business has continued to thrive and now they can no longer keep up with production demand as their 1 kg bags of Heartland Brew continue to gain popularity with domestic and business users.

They have taken the plunge and leased a building next to their Christchurch distribution center and bought a larger 60kg capacity roaster, which is currently being commissioned. This will mean a lot less roasting at their Rangiora site, but their fresh roasted coffee will continue to be roasted and offered in store