Nestlé, the global food and beverage giant, is solidifying its position as Thailand’s leading coffee market player. The company recently announced a historic investment plan worth 23 billion baht to build a new Nescafé production factory in Thailand.
Alongside a smart distribution center in Samut Prakan province, this major project has received investment promotion approval from the Board of Investment (BOI). It aims to elevate Thailand as Nestlé’s main Nescafé production hub in ASEAN and fully support exports. The factory is expected to be operational and start production by late 2028.
Establishing this new production base in Samut Prakan adds a key piece to Nestlé’s manufacturing network expansion. Nestlé has operated in Thailand for over 130 years, with eight strategically located factories including those in Navanakorn, Amata (Rayong), Bangpoo, and Chachoengsao. These facilities produce a wide range of products such as drinking water, milk, seasoning, and pet food.
For the coffee industry, especially the core Nescafé brand, building this new factory in Samut Prakan expands production capacity and strengthens the coffee supply chain to be more comprehensive and self-reliant.
The new Nescafé factory will be a model “smart factory” driven by advanced technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance quality standards, ensure process stability, and uphold environmental sustainability. It will feature Nestlé’s most advanced coffee extraction and aroma preservation technology, integrated with high-level automation including robotics, automated storage and retrieval systems (ASRS), and precise AI-controlled operations.
This factory will focus on producing a variety of popular products such as instant coffee powder, flavored coffee mixes, and canned ready-to-drink coffee. It will also house a smart distribution center in the same location to quickly distribute Nestlé’s product portfolio. The project is expected to create over 520 jobs for Thai workers, emphasizing technology experts and mid-to-high skilled labor.
Nikil Shankar, Chairman and CEO of Nestlé Indo-China, portrayed Thailand as a vital market for Nestlé for over 130 years. He said this investment reflects their confidence in Thailand. The large investment in the coffee factory and smart distribution center will not only provide high-quality products and improve efficiency for consumers but also demonstrate a commitment to driving sustainable local economic growth under the government’s Bio-Circular-Green (BCG) Economy model.
The policy prioritizes purchasing innovations, raw materials, and domestic supplies, including buying coffee beans, sugar, and raw milk from Thai farmers, amounting to about 4.3 billion baht annually. The new factory is expected to start operations in late 2028.
This investment underscores Nestlé’s ongoing commitment to benefiting Thailand. From 2018 to 2025, Nestlé invested over 27.8 billion baht in Thailand to expand production capabilities across key product categories, including beverages and pet food. Nestlé has also been the largest purchaser of robusta coffee beans in Thailand for over four decades, supporting local farmers with knowledge transfer and distribution of quality coffee seedlings developed by Nestlé’s coffee research center.
Additionally, Nestlé promotes expanding coffee cultivation areas across the country to meet rising consumption demand and reduce the gap between domestic coffee production and industry needs. Recently, Nestlé has encouraged robusta coffee plantation expansion in Mae Sot district, Tak province.
Nescafé is a leading international coffee brand established by Nestlé in 1938 and launched in Thailand in 1973. Since then, Nescafé has become Thailand’s number one coffee brand. Building this new factory marks another important step for Nestlé in fulfilling its commitment to delivering high-quality products to consumers while contributing to Thailand’s long-term economic and social development.
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