A new initiative has been launched to “nurture” ties between UK timber buyers and joinery, construction and garden wood products suppliers in the Kainuu region in eastern central Finland.
Reindeer Wood (www.reindeerwood.com) has raised €500,000 in funding, with 70% from the EU and Finnish government and the balance from the Kainuu regional authority and the first companies signed up to the initiative.
The latter comprise planed and laminated wood specialist Hasetech Oy; planed and sawn producer Kuhmon AA – Puu Oy; the Liuski Timber Oy sawmill; bio-wood treatment manufacturer Ekopine Oy; house manufacturer Oy Timber Frame; garden products producer Kuhmon Puupalvelu Oy; and furniture maker Suomisoffa Tehdas Oy.
The project manager of the East Grinstead-based UK arm of the operation is Juha Holopainen, who also runs railway sleeper, green and dried sawn oak and oak fencing supplier Juha.co.uk.
“The aim of Reindeer Wood is to offer a different and complementary approach to market from that provided by the big multi-nationals,” he said. “It’s about creating direct links between Finnish suppliers and UK buyers and to build new deep, long-term partnerships.”
These connections, he maintained, would also enable UK companies to get a more individualised product and service.
“In the future more end users will demand specific bespoke solutions to their timber requirements,” he said.
Products supplied under the new initiative could carry the Reindeer Wood brand alongside the producer’s, but Mr Holopainen stressed that the operation would be purely a “facilitator” between supplier and customer. “We will not be trading ourselves,” he said.
At the London launch of Reindeer Wood Antii Toivanen of the Kainuu development agency said that timber from the region was high quality, due to its slow growth, and harvested to a strict sustainable management regime.
“Each year the Kainuu forest grows by 6 million m³, but we cut only 3 million m³,” he said.
Mr Holopainen said he expected the first products under the Reindeer Wood programme to arrive in the UK in “two to three months”.
He added that the operation would later look to other export markets and more Kainuu timber and related businesses are expected to join.
