Kruger Products recently officially inaugurated its Sherbrooke Tissue Plant, which was commissioned in 2021, and also broke ground at its expansion project where another tissue plant will be built on a site adjacent to the Sherbrooke Plant by 2024. This second project, which represents further investments of $351.5 million, will deliver on the Company’s vision to make Sherbrooke a major premium-quality tissue product manufacturing hub in North America, featuring Canada’s most advanced and best-performing TAD tissue machine. In total, the Company will have invested nearly $1 billion in the Estrie Region since 2018.
The Sherbrooke Plant’s inauguration and the ground breaking of the expansion project took place in the presence of Mr. Joseph Kruger II, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Kruger Inc.; François Legault, Premier of Québec; Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation; Geneviève Hébert, Member for Saint-François and Deputy Government Whip; Évelyne Beaudin, Mayor of Sherbrooke; Dino Bianco, Chief Executive Officer, Kruger Products L.P.; and Patrice Bégin, General Manager, Kruger Products Sherbrooke Plant.
“Kruger is a good example of what we want to achieve in Québec: to push innovation so we can adapt to the transformation of our economy, to develop new technologies right here, to increase the competitiveness and productivity of our businesses, and to reduce the wealth gap with Ontario. To help the Québécois prosper! Our government is proud to have invested in the future by contributing financially to Kruger’s innovative projects. We want to work with our business leaders for a better future. This is how, together, we will build the economy of a winning Québec!”, said François Legault, Premier of Québec.
“With its new tissue plant and another one already under construction, Kruger is demonstrating that it is at the forefront of new product development. The pulp and paper industry has evolved at a fast pace these past few years, and it is thanks to companies like Kruger that Québec continues to be a leader in that field », said Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation.
Significant expansion project
The $351.5M expansion project includes the construction of a double-wide tissue machine featuring LDC technology, as well as the installation of two additional converting lines, one in the existing Sherbrooke Plant and the other in the new plant, which will bring the Sherbrooke site’s overall production capacity to more than 130,000 metric tonnes of high-quality tissue products, including Cashmere UltraLuxe®, Scotties® facial tissue, and SpongeTowels® UltraPROTM.
The construction project, which is to be carried out over the next two years, will require some 660,000 person-hours of work and generate substantial economic benefits for the region. The project will lead to the creation of 141 additional direct jobs, bringing the total number of jobs at the Brompton site to 348, including those at the biomass cogeneration plant owned and operated by Kruger Specialty Papers. Taking into account the 46 employees at Kruger Products’ Lennoxville Plant, there will be 394 people working for the Kruger group in the Estrie region.