Back in March at the Indiana Hardwood Lumbermen’s Association (IHLA), we had multiple conversations about hardwood lumber distribution with customers, covering Alder’s role in a growing panel-centric marketplace and how we could work to make Alder easier to sell and a better product for the craftsmen downstream. One idea is Alder surfaced to 13/16” and straight line ripped, in pre-made 500-foot approximate packs in the key grades of SUP (Superior) and PRE (Premium). The feeling was that customers could buy packs straight off the shelf that required no additional labor to sort or pull at a near full-unit price.

Today, we start taking orders for Cascade C-Packs. C for Cascade, C for Convenience, C for Customers, C for Cash saved, whatever you want to call it. The C-Pack program will be a stocking program of approximately 500 BF (10’) 14-layer units of 4/4 PRE and SUP SLR1E, S2S 13/16” 3 units with separate dunnage banded together, inventoried, and sold as a single unit. There will also be 8’ C-Pack units available.

Cascade will sell on a net tally after ripping, where the edging loss is figured into the price, the individual units will not be tagged, just the group of three. This will allow distributors to measure and label the C-Pack when pricing it as the footage before ripping or the footage after ripping, whichever is customary in their market.

We anticipate a large demand for these two new products, especially in markets where they have been outsourcing these services and spending valuable warehouse and trucking time with forklifts reloading units from stock, trucks and truck drivers delivering stock to be done, then getting it returned, then getting it unloaded back to the warehouse, then ultimately loading it for shipment to their customer.

Efficiencies in the supply chain are what will breed success in the coming years. The Cascade team, from millwrights to electricians, from supervisors to the sales team, are proud of what we have done. Call us today to be an initial buyer of the Cascade C-Pack program. When you think about it, it’s a very smart decision to add this to your stocking mix for your customers.