ROYAL ARMENIA and VOLPAK: A Partnership of Excellence for the Armenian Coffee Market
Royal Armenia: A general overview
Royal Armenia JV LLC, founded in 1997, is the first company in Armenia to process and package high-quality green coffee. The company imports the best varieties of green coffee from Brazil, Colombia, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries. The products of the company fully meet all international quality requirements and technical regulations relevant to this product category.
The company offers all coffee lovers a wide range of coffees from natural roasted beans. This includes the best blends of ground coffee obtained from selected beans of Arabica and Robusta, as well as 100%-natural instant freeze-dried coffees RA Premium and RA Gold. Additionally, the company portfolio includes instant 3-in-1 coffee drinks with three different flavors and also instant hot chocolate, tea with 4 flavors, and black pepper.
Mr. Ruben Akopian, Vice-Director and Co-owner of Royal Armenia, describes the success and the development of the company as follows:
“My father was the founder of the company. He had the vision of this business, the idea of creating a company focused on the manufacture of coffee, since Armenia is a coffee consuming country, although not in the Western style. Here in our country, "Turkish" type coffee is the most consumed. Royal Armenia was the first Armenian and Caucasus Company dedicated to the coffee sector. In addition to the large share of the national market that we have achieved, since previously, almost all coffee was imported, we currently handle around 50% of exports to countries such as: Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, and the USA. Almost all of our exports go to the Armenian population residing in these countries. It is estimated that about 2-3 million Armenians live in the United States.”
The collaboration between Royal Armenia and Volpak: a success history
Royal Armenia was the pioneering company in Armenia to use and package coffee in the Doypack format, a fact that differentiated the company from other competitors in the sector. After an evaluation of several packaging machinery companies, and specifically in the flexible packaging sector, Royal Armenia bet on Volpak, not only because the machine they proposed was adapted to Royal Armenia’s specifications and requirements, but also because the Volpak name is associated with reliability, efficiency and trust.
That is why, today, Royal Armenia has four Volpak machines. These include: two HFFS machine that produces stand-up pouches, and two vertical machines producing vertical pouches. It is important to note that Royal Armenia’s purchase of first packaging machine was also a milestone for Volpak, since it marked its introduction to the Armenian market.
The solution for a more efficient production with the standards and requirements of the coffee market.
The packaging solutions offered by Volpak broadly comply with the national efficiency and quality standards that are requested in Armenia, as well as with the standards and requirements demanded for export.
Royal Armenia is the only company in the region that has a production process which fully meets the state and international standards for quality and food safety management (ISO 22000:2005), as well as all technical regulations of the Customs Union.
The advantages of Volpak’s solution
Mr. Akopian, Vice-Director and Co-owner of Royal Armenia, described benefits of the collaboration with Volpak as follows:
“The obvious advantages include the greater versatility in the changeover and the higher productivity. It is very important for us, because we produce three types of formats: 100-, 250- and 400-gram packages, including both beans and ground coffee, as well as other types of products like pepper, for example.
The expectations have been met, which is also thanks to the strong collaboration between the two companies. Volpak’s engineers were extremely good at identifying all the solutions needed to optimize the pouch, as well as being particularly willing to discuss the various adjustments to be made together with Royal Armenia personnel in the weeks following testing. We can mention a good example of this close collaboration: the machine was specially adapted to be able to pack powdered cappuccino in a single-use sachet.
The level of collaboration and excellent service were additional reasons that convinced Royal Armenia to appoint Volpak.