MADISON, Wis (WSAU) — Wisconsin trade officials have developed a marketing aid to help forest product producers sell overseas. Jen Pino-Gallagher is the Bureau Director for Wisconsin’s Department of Ag, Trade, and Consumer Protection. She says they have recently produced a marketing video. “We have a video that’s promoting Wisconsin’s diverse lumber and forestry products, and the purpose of the video is to create awareness of this product, and Wisconsin’s forestry products around the world so that we can help our forestry companies build sales.”
With a growing middle class in several countries, Pino-Gallagher says Wisconsin companies can take advantage of new markets. “We’re definitely seeing an increased demand for wood products overseas. We’re seeing growing economies, especially in the Asian markets as well as Latin America. We’re seeing a greater demand for wood products, both lumber products as well as finished wood products, and we’re trying to encourage some of that demand to come to Wisconsin.”
You can grow trees nearly anywhere in the world, but Wisconsin wood is highly sought after. Pino-Gallagher says Wisconsin companies can benefit from the demand for this high quality wood. “There’s some unique characteristics that come from Wisconsin’s wood products. Your listeners may not know, but nearly 60% of our state’s trees are considered hardwood, such as oak and maple, and with the long winters and our short summers, and our rich glacial soils, the wood products coming from our state have some unique characteristics, both unique in the tightness of the grain as well as the uniform color, and those characteristics are highly sought after from buyers around the world.”
It’s not just finished products like furniture that are making sales on the export market. Pino-Gallagher says foreign manufacturers are bringing in more and more Wisconsin lumber. “Sawn lumber is very popular. That’s put into finished goods. We’re also seeing a big demand, a growing demand for veneer, which obviously is highly sought after around the world, so we have a variety of products going out of our state, chief of which is lumber which goes out as raw logs.”
Buyers are seeking everything from railroad ties and lumber veneers and wood fuel pellets. Sales to China alone nearly double from 2012 to 2013 approaching 38-million dollars in value.
The marketing video is now translated in Mandarin Chinese, and is also available on YouTube. Pino-Gallagher says Wisconsin forest product companies that want to learn more about international marketing should contact the Department of Ag, Trade, and Consumer Protection through their website or by calling (608) 224-5012.
(Listen to our interview with Jen Pino-Gallagher on our website, here.)