The pellet plant produces approximately 90,000 tons of wood pellets annually. HOMES FOR HARDWOOD Of the 650 people that are employed by Groupe Savoie, about 500 work out of the company’s headquarters in St. Quentin, a little over 100 kilometres from the Quebec border. The St. Quentin location boasts two sawmills, a pallet plant, a component plant, a pellet plant and dry kilns. “A lot of people travel here and stay during the week and go home on the weekend,” Levesque says. “We have a lot of that happening now.” Between 70 and 80 people work out of the component plant and dry kiln opera-tion in Kedgwick, N.B., with the remain-ing staff split between its pallet produc-tion and recycling plant in Moncton and its sawmill in Westville. In addition to producing 80 million board feet annually, the company produces CHEP pallets, custom pallets, kitchen cabinets, guitar necks and industrial and residential wood pellets. Levesque says that diversifying the company’s hardwood operations has been a major factor in it remaining eco-nomically viable, especially during tough times like the last recession. “Diversification is why we’re still alive today,” he says. “I’m not saying that during that time some of the products were in high demand… but when the kitchen cabinet market goes down the tubes and lumber prices aren’t there, it gives us a ‘Plan B’ internally. If a customer wants 50 per cent less lumber, maybe there’s a way we can send it elsewhere through another process temporarily. It gives us another route to minimize the impact.” IMPORTANCE OF INVESTMENT Groupe Savoie has been a willingness by ownership to investment in its various operations. “Even through the tough years, Jean-Claude never stopped investing in his mills,” Levesque says. “Even when profit was not there, we were investing substan-tial amounts of money back into the op-erations. He has the long-term vision to reinvest – not only when it’s profitable.” PELLET OPERATIONS One of the company’s more recent invest-ments was in its pellet plant operation in St. Quentin, originally started up about six years ago. The plant produces approximately 90,000 tons of wood pellets annually for the domestic residential pellet market and the European industrial grade pellet market, running seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The company installed a new 55-mil-lion BTU Wellons FEI burner last year to remove a bottleneck in its operations, which allowed them to accommodate an increase in production of about 20,000 pellets annually to help them keep up with future demand on the residential side of the business. Although the residential side of its pellet business took a temporary hit this year due to unusually warm winter across New Brunswick, the pellet plant has allowed Groupe Savoie to become almost completely self-sufficient with its raw materials – sawmill and harvesting residuals – and has put the company in a strong position to accommodate the residential market for the harsher, cold-er winters that the province typically ex-periences. Groupe Savoie also invested in a West-ern Star 15-ton capacity, vacuum deliv-ery truck to service its domestic market across the province, making them the first company to own this type of equip-ment across Canada. With a willingness to invest in new technologies and upgrades in all of its op-erations, Groupe Savoie has a long-term vision that will likely see them provide much-needed employment across the Maritimes for future generations. • Another key factor for the success of Canadian BIOMASS allied blower biomass novdec14.indd 1 25 2014-11-18 2:22 PM
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