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Brink Continues to Grow
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Third Finger-joint Line in Making
By GORDON HOEKSTRA, Citizen Staff
Even as Brink Forest Products ramps up production at a new finger-jointing lumber plant – one that has created 50 new jobs – the company is gearing up for more growth.
A second building on River Road is being readied for another expansion, which will create the company’s third finger-joint line. The first line is housed in the company’s main operation across the road in the CN industrial site.
With the opening of the new $4.5 million plant last month, Brink Forest Products is on an aggressive push to position itself as a premier producer of finger-jointed lumber in B.C. and Canada. It now has a production capacity of 80 million board feet, and hopes to increase that by another 50 million board feet – and another 50 jobs – before winter.
The Prince George-based company also bought a wood block plant last November in Houston, 300 kilometres west of Prince George, which is now supplying material for the River Road operations.
Brink Forest Products work force now sits at 150 in Prince George. There is another 50 jobs at its plant in Houston, where the company is also examining plans to start-up a finger-jointing line.
“We’ve virtually doubled the size of the company in the last 12 to 18 months,” owner John Brink said Wednesday. “We expect to do the same thing in the next 12 to 18 months.”
The new plant’s start-up is significant because it creates some of the first new jobs in the solid softwood manufacturing sector in Prince George in the better part of a decade. The primary sawmilling industry has shed hundreds of jobs in the Prince George region in the same period.
Brink is in expansion mode despite obstacles.
Canada is in the midst of a bitter softwood lumber trade fight with the U.S. It means 27-per-cent tariffs on lumber shipped to the U.S. The Canadian loonie has also increased significantly compared to the U.S. dollar during the past 16 months, which also hurts exporters.
But Brink likes the supply-demand relationship for his product, which is starting to be sought by builders who like its uniformity and high-quality. The product is made by gluing short blocks of wood together to create two-by-three, two-by-four and two-by-six framing studs. Finger-jointed studs – which are straighter than regular lumber – are bringing a premium in the Lower Mainland now.
Brink, who pioneered finger-joint lumber manufacturing in Western Canada in the 1970s, also believes the product will have a bright future as pre-fabricated component and home construction increases in North America. The factory-built housing sector already exceeds $17 billion in North America.
There are also plans on the books for a pilot furniture plant.
“We are going to build on our people, build on our product and build on innovation,” said Brink. “We will keep being aggressive.”
The company has also achieved more security around its raw material supply after recently inking a five-year deal with Canfor, continuing a relationship Brink has had with the company for the better part of a decade.
Brink says its strategic relationship with Canfor is an important one, even more so now that Canfor has itself grown in size following a $630-million friendly buyout of Slocan.
All Brink Forest Products’ remanufactured lumber is marketed under the Canfor logo.
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