During September, 6 of our staff enjoyed a trip to visit one of the paper mills that supply our papers, this particular one is relatively new and modern and boasts the most advanced technology in paper-making in the world – we really care about the environment and the paper products we supply so it was great to see our suppliers passion in action too! We’ve asked Stuart from our internal sales team to tell us a bit about the trip and the mill:
So Stuart, tell us about your visit to this paper mill?
Sure, I felt privileged to be chosen to go along on this trip to see the mill in action and found it very interesting. We had opportunity to visit both the nurseries and the pulp and paper mill all situated near to Lisbon. The nursery was certainly very enlightening, the care from the very initial steps of the process right the way through was impressive to say the least – from planting the shoots, growing the trees, harvesting them, producing the pulp then finally the paper. Firstly, the shoots are cut from ‘mother’ trees – they are constantly analysing their forests for perfect trees to clone from, and then during the months April to September cuttings are planted by hand into plastic pots- about 140,000 cuttings per day! These millions of little plants are carefully nurtured in 20day phases with controlled irrigation and shading, then into the open air and finally to the plantations. These trees reach peak quality and yield for paper at around 11 or 12 years when they are felled and an interesting and unique fact about this particular species is that once the tree is felled it will grow again from the existing root, again for quality reasons, this process is only repeated 3 times and then it loses yield so it is dug up and replaced with a new tree. It was all very orderly and systematic.
We also enjoyed a very brief visit to their winery where they produce wine from grapes grown in their own vineyard adjacent to the nurseries. Unfortunately there were no samples!
We then spent the afternoon at one of the pulp and paper mills to see the next stage of the process. This particular mill was built in 2009 which involved a large financial investment into extremely advanced technology – it struck you as very clean and almost laboratory conditions. Quality control is taken to an exceptional level with a huge series of tests applied to each batch of paper giving complete traceability. The paper is formed onto large rolls – 80 tonnes of paper to a roll and finished size about 10 metres wide and 65 miles in length – (this creates about 4 containers of cut size paper!) – we then saw many other stages of the process from cutting, wrapping, reaming, boxing, palletising and then loading into correct bays in their warehousing – all automatically – quite mesmerising to watch!
Thoroughly enjoyed the day and I feel even more confident than before that the products we offer are the very best!
Thanks for that Stuart, it was worthwhile to go and see our suppliers and to check for ourselves that we really are sourcing the best quality paper products and the best for our environment.
We have another trip planned for more of our staff next month
Sep 25, 2014