diff --git a/r/R/arrow-package.R b/r/R/arrow-package.R
index 8655bf5a1cc68..eec95b8282bfd 100644
--- a/r/R/arrow-package.R
+++ b/r/R/arrow-package.R
@@ -241,12 +241,6 @@ on_macos_10_13_or_lower <- function() {
     package_version(unname(Sys.info()["release"])) < "18.0.0"
 }
 
-on_rosetta <- function() {
-  # make sure to suppress warnings and ignore the stdout + stderr so that this is silent
-  identical(tolower(Sys.info()[["sysname"]]), "darwin") &&
-    identical(suppressWarnings(system("sysctl -n sysctl.proc_translated", intern = TRUE, ignore.stderr = TRUE)), "1")
-}
-
 option_use_threads <- function() {
   !is_false(getOption("arrow.use_threads"))
 }
diff --git a/r/R/install-arrow.R b/r/R/install-arrow.R
index 715478f6d0542..6db6f2b0adaa3 100644
--- a/r/R/install-arrow.R
+++ b/r/R/install-arrow.R
@@ -79,7 +79,8 @@ install_arrow <- function(nightly = FALSE,
     # On the M1, we can't use the usual autobrew, which pulls Intel dependencies
     apple_m1 <- grepl("arm-apple|aarch64.*darwin", R.Version()$platform)
     # On Rosetta, we have to build without JEMALLOC, so we also can't autobrew
-    if (on_rosetta()) {
+    rosetta <- on_rosetta()
+    if (rosetta) {
       Sys.setenv(ARROW_JEMALLOC = "OFF")
     }
     if (apple_m1 || rosetta) {
@@ -267,3 +268,9 @@ wslify_path <- function(path) {
   end_path <- strsplit(path, drive_expr)[[1]][-1]
   file.path(wslified_drive, end_path)
 }
+
+on_rosetta <- function() {
+  # make sure to suppress warnings and ignore the stderr so that this is silent where proc_translated doesn't exist
+  identical(tolower(Sys.info()[["sysname"]]), "darwin") &&
+    identical(suppressWarnings(system("sysctl -n sysctl.proc_translated", intern = TRUE, ignore.stderr = TRUE)), "1")
+}
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-arrow-pacakge.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-arrow-pacakge.R
deleted file mode 100644
index 2d79467fa30a9..0000000000000
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-arrow-pacakge.R
+++ /dev/null
@@ -1,21 +0,0 @@
-# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
-# or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
-# distributed with this work for additional information
-# regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
-# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
-# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
-# with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
-#
-#   http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
-#
-# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
-# software distributed under the License is distributed on an
-# "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
-# KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
-# specific language governing permissions and limitations
-# under the License.
-
-test_that("on_rosetta() does not warn", {
-  # There is no warning
-  expect_warning(on_rosetta(), NA)
-})
diff --git a/r/tests/testthat/test-install-arrow.R b/r/tests/testthat/test-install-arrow.R
index 787c8ea2c018c..5415fc27581cc 100644
--- a/r/tests/testthat/test-install-arrow.R
+++ b/r/tests/testthat/test-install-arrow.R
@@ -33,3 +33,8 @@ test_that("arrow_repos", {
     expect_identical(arrow_repos(c(ours, other), nightly = TRUE), c(ours, other))
   })
 })
+
+test_that("on_rosetta() does not warn", {
+  # There is no warning
+  expect_warning(on_rosetta(), NA)
+})