Inland Truss Inc has bought the former CanFibre MDF plant in Riverside, California, for US$5.85m.
The company plans to leave Fontana and make Riverside its primary facility for producing custom wood trusses. Factory re-fitting will begin in June, involving further automation of equipment and streamlining of production, with all lines becoming operational by the end of 2003.
Inland Truss currently makes US$13-15m worth of trusses a year but this will increase to US$20m by the end of the first year at Riverside. Its workforce will also soar from about 110 to 165.
CanFibre’s plant was built in 2000 to manufacture ‘green’ fibreboard from woodwaste. It ran into financial problems later that year and filed for reorganisation under chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code, before stopping production in April 2001.
