Paper Excellence has received $4.5 million from the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program. This funding will be invested at Catalyst Port Alberni to expand the mill’s production capacity for food packaging papers. Traditionally, this mill produced printing and writing grades; however, demand for these products has been in steady decline. Transitioning to food grade papers means meeting growing market demand, providing sustainable alternatives to single-use plastic serving containers, and advancing British Columbia’s circular economy.
The new grades will be produced using unique pulping capabilities developed at the Catalyst Port Alberni mill that net a higher yield in fiber use. As a result, the mill will be able to increase the amount of food packaging materials it produces but will use less residual wood fibre to do so.
IFIT is a federal program that provides capital funding to support transformative projects by forest sector firms to diversify into new product streams and implement innovative process improvements to ensure industry competitiveness.
Catalyst Port Alberni employs 310 full time people on Vancouver Island, supports 800 indirect jobs in British Columbia, and makes an economic contribution of $500 million annually.
Paper Excellence, headquartered in British Columbia, is a diversified manufacturer of pulp and specialty, printing, writing, and packaging papers.
