The closure of Scottsdale, Tasmania’s two softwood sawmills has cleared the way for the Branxholm mill to invest in further processing pine. Source: ABC Rural
“We’ve got customers that use pallets for hops, we’ve got growers that need bins for potatoes, for carrots, and the apple growers,” Branxholm sawmill general manager Dale Jessup said.
“We supply pallets to the skin market where the pallets are exported to China from the abattoirs in Tasmania, and brick manufacturers as well.”
Jessup is said the business will add a drying kiln to its sawing and box and pallet making activities before the end of the year. It’s just one of the investments Jessup is contemplating.
“The sawmill traditionally used to sell most of the timber onto the mainland market,” he said.
“Now we’re really focussing on the opportunities in Tasmania.
“Unfortunately with the demise of a number of the timber businesses in Tasmania that’s created a few opportunities for us.
“With the exception of the pallets and bins we don’t do a lot of value adding to the product.
“From here we’re about to install a kiln on site.
“It will give us the capacity to kiln dry timber and we’ll also be able to heat treat timber for export, which means it can be certified for export.
“At the moment we need to chemically fumigate timber that’s going to be exported out of Australia.
“We’ll have onion exporters ring up wanting pallets to put onions on that are being shipped over to Europe.
“We’ve got one customer that’s a whiskey distillery and they ring up and order one pallet a year and they send a pallet of whiskey over to Canada every year.
“Unfortunately I haven’t had a sample yet, but I’m still working on that.”
