Food Industry
SCA trades a variety of foods, including processed marine products, beef, and commodities such as corn, wheat, and soy for both the industrial and consumer markets.
Forest Products
Sojitz Canada Forest Products Department, which operates in Vancouver, British Columbia (BC), has two sections: Logs and Lumber. Our primary business is exporting logs and lumber from North America to Japan for housing. We conduct negotiations, control quality, perform market analysis, and manage logistics in a timely manner for our overseas customers with seven knowledgeable members generating $100 million in sales annually.
The Log section consists of three members and one contractor who reside in Seattle. We currently have a 38,000 ton chartered vessel rotating regularly and also charter spot vessels additionally from time to time. We ship about 15 vessels per year filled with softwood logs such as Douglas Fir, Hemlock, Balsam, Spruce, Yellow and Red Cedar mainly to Japan and occasionally Korea and China. With its growing economy, China is becoming our primary focus for expansion. Sojitz is the largest log exporter to Japan and in the past several years we have established and increased plywood log business in North America. Currently, we load out of Fraser Surrey, Port Alberni, and Nanaimo in British Columbia, and Alaska and Longview in the U.S. Prior to loading to our designated ports, we conduct log inspections to ensure that quality meets each of our customer’s desired standards.
Although forestry might sound like a rural industry in a developed country like Canada, it still remains one of the biggest industries in British Columbia. The Sojitz Canada Lumber section consists of four members. Most of the lumber we trade is used for housing materials in Japan and most is shipped by containers. Our main focus is “Custom Cut” which is a very unique field in the lumber industry in British Columbia. We secure sawmill shifts to produce items specifically tailored to our customers’ needs. We inspect logs stored in the river and in the ocean, create cut specifications, supervise sawmill production, and arrange trucking and shipping to our customers. This contrasts with traditional lumber trade that often involves only buying and selling pre-sawn lumber.
On top of traditional export businesses, in the past couple years we’ve started importing lumber from Japan to the U.S. The appearance and characteristics of Japanese Sugi are very similar to Western Red Cedar (WRC) which is often used for fence/decking in the USA. Due to decreased supply of WRC within North America, there has been a need for other species and the popularity of Japanese Sugi has increased dramatically. The Japanese Government is promoting new ways to use wood in recent years as the log growth rate exceeds the harvest volume in Japan. So exporting lumber out of Japan matches the Japanese environmental/economical strategy with lumber demand in the USA. We expect consistent growth in U.S. housing starts based on population trends and are focused on this market. We also import environmentally certified Brazilian plywood into the USA and Canada.
Today we are actively seeking opportunities to create business related to biomass energy. In order to conserve the environment, the world is looking to substitute traditional natural resources with renewable energy. While Canada has abundant non-renewable energy resources, it also has a vast and boundless land covered in trees. The potential of woody biomass is therefore nearly unlimited. Canada is located right between Asia and Europe, and we look forward to contributing not only to Sojitz but also to the world by promoting the use of biomass energy. We are devoted to diversifying our sales channels and developing new markets while maintaining our good relationships with customers at home and abroad as we continuously strive to be the major player in the forest industry.