More caffeine? Yes, please

Published 11:15 pm Friday, June 12, 2020

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If you’ll allow us to be tongue-in-cheek for a moment, one of the few businesses that was probably not struggling in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic was any form of caffeine.

Working parents struggled to juggle working from home, schooling their children at home and still taking care of the home. Essential workers like health care professionals and first responders — and, yes, journalists too! — needed anything they could get to help them work the long hours and push through unusual situations. Everyone was stressed out and needed something to take the edge off of their headaches.

We think the coffee, tea and soda giants probably did all right.

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But still, it was a pleasant surprise on Thursday to get the news that Massimo Zanetti plans to build a new distribution center in Suffolk’s Virginia Port Logistics Park, off Holland Road. The company will also maintain its corporate headquarters and main roasting operations located off Wilroy Road.

City leaders dubbed Suffolk the “Caffeine Capital of the World” a few years back, and with good reason. Between corporate headquarters, coffee roasting facilities, packing facilities and ancillary companies that produce packaging and provide logistics support, a sizeable portion of the city’s warehouse space is dedicated to making sure Americans can stay wide awake when they want to. These facilities are also paying taxes and employing hundreds of Suffolk residents.

We celebrate this new announcement and look forward to seeing more of these new and expanded facilities in the future.