BY JOSEPH QUESNEL
Northern Ontario Business
A Haileybury-based custom milling operation is adding a new planing mill, thanks to a recent surge in market demand.
South Wabi Sawmill, a value-added wood product facility employing four local workers, has been dealing with high volumes of specialty orders for cedar, and red and white pine products. According to the owner, the mill has quadrupled its sales since it started doing custom trim recently.
“We take enough lumber, but I’m never able to saw it fast enough,” says Fred MacKewn, owner and operator of the two-year-old mill which specializes in designing and completing specialty trim, decking, siding and tongue-and-groove flooring.
MacKewn, a former trucker, got into the business after seeing an obvious gap between local demand and local production.
“Antique trimming is what really got me into this,” MacKewn says. “When I was trucking white pine while I was in the trucking business, I
discovered it. We were trucking it out of Sudbury towards Winnipeg, Manitoba and they were making the antique trimming there and then shipping it back out to Toronto. I thought to myself, ‘why can’t we do it here’?”
The irony, he says, was in the fact that larger local wood producers were extracting wood from the bush, using local lumber operations and then shipping it off to Montreal where the wood would be re-sold to area residents at a higher price.
Although about 60 per cent of his market is in the Muskoka region, MacKewn says he attributes the survival of his business to local buyers. What draws locals to his business, however, is the custom he brings to the product. The customer is in charge of the production.
According to MacKewn, a few weeks ago his company finalized a distribution agreement with a hardware store in Rouyn-Noranda, Que.
Although MacKewn receives most of his wood from local suppliers like Liskeard Lumber and Cheminis, he is convinced that his future lies in
securing markets outside the immediate area. South Wabi Sawmill was approached several times by Swedish furniture giant Ikea to produce specific products for them. MacKewn, however, believes that dealing with large multinationals like Ikea is easier said than done.
For a small operation like South Wabi Sawmill, the modifications that they would have to do to their operation to accommodate Ikea would be too
much, he says.
Two months ago, he and his wife and business partner, Carmen, added a Web site feature allowing customers to order customized items.
The only problem was the fact that each order is unique and difficult to price via the Web site. Customers must speak over the phone and they receive a final price quote after labour and material costs are calculated.
