Leading Irish sawmillers are launching a marketing assault to boost their UK sales by around £35m a year.
The campaign is being jointly funded by Enterprise Ireland and the country’s nine leading export mills, under the Irish Timber Council. The budget for the first year is around £50,000.
The marketing push has kicked off with a glossy brochure, giving statistics on timber availability and general information, plus thumb nail sketches of the nine mills, including contact and capacity details. The participating mills are: Coolrain Sawmills, Drenagh Sawmills, ECC TEO, Glennon Bros Timber, Grainger Sawmills, Laois Sawmills, Murray Timber, Palfab and Woodfab Timber.
The publication will be distributed to at least 2,000 UK softwood buyers, specifiers and end users.
The next step will be buyer visits to Ireland, hosted by Enterprise Ireland and the ITC to enable UK companies to see first hand the capabilities of the mills and the range and quality of their production.
Niall McEvoy, Enterprise Ireland’s London-based manager of industrial products, said the target of the campaign is to increase the nine mills’ annual UK sales by 50% in three years. Currently they stand at around £68m (Euro108m).
‘We hoping for increases in all areas, including fencing, pallet, packaging and construction grade timber,’ he said.
