“Knowing that we have control over our products from the very beginning of the process to the very end allows us to make the right end use product that we know is going into a person’s home. Our main goal will always be to provide a value-added product.” – Parm Binning, head of marketing and business development, Jazz Forest Products
Jazz Forest Products, headquartered in Abbotsford, BC, is a multi-generational family owned reman plant and intricate part of the ever-expanding Mirax Group.
The genesis of the company began in 1998 when brothers Jas, Sunny, and Manjit Binning saw an opportunity to purchase a piece of land, 15 acres to be exact, and built a remanufacturing business. What started as a custom cut remanufacturing mill for other local primary manufacturers has grown to 500 employees, with each of their locations ranging anywhere from 45-60 employees. Jazz has now become much more than a remanufacturing plant producing Western Red Cedar (WRC), Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Spruce-Pine-Fir (SPF) and delivering to over 40 countries around the world.
Parm Binning, head of marketing and business development and part of the second generation of the Binning family, explained, “Around 2006 we started exporting primarily to India and China. Since then we’ve delivered our products to Europe, UK, the Middle East, Malaysia, Australia, Japan, and of course the U.S. About 25 percent of our sales go into the export market while the other 75 percent is sold throughout the U.S.”
A major acquisition occurred in 2020, Rav Binning, also a part of the second generation and head of North American sales, said, “In 2020 right before Covid we purchased a sawmill in Sechelt, BC, Suncoast Lumber, a strictly Cedar sawmill that’s been running WRC for over 40 years.”
Parm Binning said, “The purchase of Suncoast made us a vertically integrated manufacturer. We are now logging crown and private land, sorting the logs at Avalon, our log sort facility in Gibson, BC, where some go to the open market and the rest are processed at Suncoast. Finally, the broken-down fiber comes to the site in Abbotsford for further processing or to our newest facility, Lyle Specialty Forest Products, which was acquired in February of 2023.”
When Suncoast was purchased, the sawmill had just recently been through a massive fire. Once rebuilt the operation was equipped with state-of-the-art equipment including a seven-foot circular double cut head rig, an end feed debarker, a six-saw shifting edger, a five-foot vertical resaw for secondary breakdown and trim decks and bin sorters.
“We are always adding, changing or modifying our facilities to make them more efficient,” said Rav. Recently two high-speed planer lines were added to the Abbotsford facility. This location also has a Yates Planer line with retrim redecks, a Stetson Ross 6-12 planer with inline horizontal resaws, vertical resaws, automated trimmers, a 24-saw auto trimmer and at the end of the green chain an automated stacker.
The company’s newest acquisition, located in Chilliwack, BC – Lyle Specialty Forest Products – was established in 1972 as a wholesale specialty producer and custom reman operation. Today this location acts as a last stop for final processing of WRC products before shipping to customers. Rav said, “Our main goal with this new location is extracting as much value from those broken-down logs as possible. By purchasing and investing in Lyle Specialty, we’ve given ourselves the opportunity to have a vertically-integrated company that focuses not on high production but extracting every bit of value out of our logs and delivering those products directly to our customers.”
Parm added, “Knowing that we have control over our products from the very beginning of the process to the very end allows us to make the right end use product that we know is going into a person’s home. Our main goal will always be to provide a value-added product.
“All products coming out of Lyle Specialty are WRC and Hemlock including and not limited to siding, paneling, mouldings, casings, trellis’, and engineered wood products,” said Parm. He continued, “These products are going to distributors, the box stores and retailers. We also service wholesalers, lumber yards and other secondary manufacturers in other species from our other locations.”
Jazz Forest Products is 100 percent family owned, and that is how they treat the people they work with, like family. Parm stated, “Over 50 percent of our employees have been with us since day one.” A testament to the quality and high standards that are maintained throughout all divisions of the company. The retention rate at which Jazz has kept its employees is not the only visible advantage to continuing to treat the company as a small family-owned business, but the manner in which decisions are made and how quickly they take affect has impacted the overall success of the company. “We aren’t a big corporation, so if a decision needs to be made, or there needs to be a change made at one of our mills, we can do it on the fly and have the change implemented within hours,” Parm added.
When asked about the future of Jazz Forest Products, Parm responded, “There are plans for us to grow; we are not content to stagnate but for the time being we are very happy with our group of companies and continuing to keep our customers satisfied.”
Jazz Forest Products is a member of the North American Wholesale Lumber Association, Southern Forest Products Association, BC Wood and Canadian Mill Services Association.
For more information, visit www.Jazzforest.ca or email their team for inquiries at info@jazzforest.ca.
