A truckload of fence post fibre at Vermette Wood Preservers. (Instagram/Vermette Wood Preservers)

By Teena Monteleone

Manufacturing Sales

Local wood product manufacturer benefits from strong growth in Saskatchewan

Dec 21, 2021 | 4:00 PM

Saskatchewan continues to have one of the top performing economies in the country.

Manufacturing sales increased 53 per cent between October 2020 and October 2021, which is the highest year-over-year increase among all the provinces. Chemical manufacturing sales increased by 100 per cent during that time. Other subsectors that saw the largest increases were food manufacturing at 40.6 per cent, machinery manufacturing at 35.7 per cent and wood product manufacturing at 42 per cent. That success is also being seen at a local level.

Vermette Wood Preservers, located just north of Prince Albert, is the only Métis-owned wood preservation company in Canada according to president Perry Vermette. About 80 per cent of what they produce is done so with wood fibre from Saskatchewan. They make utility poles, bridge timbers, agricultural fence posts, and firewood as well as shavings as a byproduct. Vermette told paNOW they export some of their items, but he’s content selling in Saskatchewan.

“We’ve had the opportunity to export utility poles and bridge timbers to the United States, but to be perfectly honest, our Saskatchewan government pretty much purchases everything we can produce of those two items. So, I’d just as soon keep it at home,” Vermette said.

The company has seen considerable growth. Last year, Vermette said they had a 15 per cent increase in sales overall. The year before, they saw an 18 per cent growth in sales.

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“We’re seeing continuous growth…consistent growth that is coming back every year. We’re actually now getting opportunities to sell outside of our province if we could provide enough wood and one day we will,” Vermette said.

The wood product manufacturer is seeing local support grow too as the company name gains popularity thanks to the contracts with the province. Vermette said it’s helped business increase by millions of dollars annually.

“You hear ‘Buy Saskatchewan’, but there was a time that I can say I never felt that was happening. However, over the last probably seven or eight years, we’ve seen considerable growth with new products that were proposed to us. For example, our utility poles. SaskPower approached Vermettes and said, ‘Why aren’t you producing utility poles for us?’ So, they helped us along and showed us the ropes and within two to three years we were producing,” Vermette said.

They sell 5,000 to 6,000 poles and are SaskPower’s second largest producer of utility poles. All of the wood product that goes into bridge restoration projects through Saskatchewan Highways is also from Vermette’s.

In a press release, Export Development Minister Jeremy Harrison said, “our government has built a competitive business environment which will ensure we continue to be leaders in our key sectors including energy, mining, agriculture, forestry, manufacturing and more.”

The new numbers released by Statistics Canada also show Saskatchewan’s manufacturing sales increased 5.9 per cent in October 2021 compared to September 2021. This was the second highest month-to-month increase among all the provinces.

In total, Saskatchewan’s manufacturing sales in October were worth $1.8 billion.

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Teena.monteleone@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @MonteleoneTeena