When Britannic Eesti AS – a Britannic Group plc member – went into receivership last year a group of employees set about ensuring its future.

In January they achieved their aim, securing local finance to buy the company from the receivers and launch Scanforest AS, a company with its sights set high.

Company spokesperson Tonis Suimets said: ‘Since March this year we have been operating two sawmills in Estonia – one at Näpi and the other at Purila. We received control of the sawmill at Näpi in December 2000 after signing an agreement with the bank.

‘The former management, made up of ex-pats, had left the company and Estonian management took control of the company assets and its future. The final settlement was signed in March and Näpi officially became Scanforest property.

‘Within a year the workforce had dropped from 450 to 220, but now it has grown to 280 people who are achieving the same volumes of production as before.’

Mr Suimets said it is not only the number of workers required that has changed under the new management. ‘With tight cash and expense management the company has been profitable since April, even though coming to a highly competitive market in the second half of the year proved to be extremely difficult. However, further investment plans are already being discussed – for instance it is planned to increase moulding and kiln drying capacity.’

The new management structure has focused on development with more eco-friendly equipment – for instance it uses naturally produced waste from its sawmills in Näpi and Purila for its dry kilns. The environment friendly principles are further promoted by using material from accredited Forest Stewardship Council suppliers.

The company is now supplying customers in both the UK and European markets and is planning more investment in state-of-the-art machinery in order to stay competitive with its Scandinavian neighbours.

In its planing mill the company has six planers, two of which are new, and in its mills it has four re-saws. Tooling equipment includes a Wadkin Visage Plus and an NZ 300 profile grinder, while equipment for component work includes a Wadkin NT double end tenoning machines, shrink-wrapping machines and a computerised Grecon precision cross-cutting machine.

Kiln drying at Purila is carried out by two Utec chambers each with a 200m³ capacity, while at Näpi there are three 200m³ Incomac chambers and one with a 100m³ capacity.

Scanforest produces 50,000-60,000m³ from the two sawmills and 40,000m³ per year of machined timber from a single shift, with the potential of a three shift system which would boost production to 180,000m³ sawn and 120,000m³ machined timber.

With its constant supply of good quality spruce logs from Estonian government-owned and private forests, combined with a long-standing trading relationship with forestry companies in northern Russia, the management is confident of continuity of supply.

With a wide and varied range, the com-pany is well-equipped to supply end users in the construction and private sectors with products such as: SVM, shiplap, PTG (flooring), cladding, decking, PSE, PAR, door casings and door linings. Scanforest can also offer machine stress, strength grading to C16/C24 and TR26.

Mr Suimets said: ‘We use up-to-date computerised equipment to produce templates which enable us to produce any profile required to meet customer needs.’

All the goods are cross-cut to length, bundled, strapped, shrink-wrapped and/or spiral wrapped, based on customer requirements.