About logging and primary processing with Ionică Ștefănoaia from Lăcusta Prodcom

We recently visited Lăcusta Prodcom, a logging and primary wood processing company in Cornu Luncii, Suceava. Discussions about logging, the fact that all those who cut and process wood are put on the same level, led us to visit such a company to see how logging is done, how and how much is cut, how it is processed and where the wood from primary logging ends up. Wood-Mizer, a supplier of primary processing equipment, facilitated our meeting with Ionică Ștefănoaia, the managing director and owner of Lăcusta Prodcom, with whom we chatted on a foggy October morning. It was a discussion about building a business, about work and hardship, about wood.

We arrived in Cornu Luncii at 8.30. We had talked with Mr. Ștefănoaia to meet in the morning, but the dense fog delayed us a bit. It wasn't a problem because the same fog delayed him. He was returning at that time from somewhere in Neamț, where he had left at 3 in the morning. In the meantime, we met the factory manager, who was treating us with apples picked in the morning and told us about the apples in the orchard like children.

Mr. Ștefănoaia arrived shortly afterwards and the conversation started to connect. He has that soft Bucovinean accent that makes everything he says sound like he's telling a story. You'll see and hear him in the movie at the end. He's friendly and open, nothing like I imagined a person who made a living from logging. He knows everything about the company's business, the machinery, the logging and primary processing, the permits and approvals, the price of timber and the country's needs. He answered our questions, expressed his wishes and desires.

Start

The company started logging in 1994, but growth came with the purchase of the first Wood-Mizer sawmill in 2006. Until then they cut wood bought from Romsilva and sold it as logs or firewood. Machinery was scarce, a lot of work was done with old logging methods, and activity was quite low. By 2006 it had grown to 7 employees. At that time he could have hired at any time, there were many people who came to the gate to ask him if he was not hiring. But he didn't have to. There were enough for the amount of activity.

He realized that cutting and selling logs to furniture factories was not the only way to grow and he wanted to buy a machine that could make good quality lumber for factories or construction. In 2006 he came to Bucharest for the BIFE furniture and equipment fair, where he saw the T 300 sawmill for the first time. It was love at first sight. He kept going back and forth, he was all around it, and Wood-Mizer noticed his interest. After all the discussions and even though he told them he didn't have all the money, they sent the saw to Suceava. Like any serious Bucovinean, he immediately went to the bank, did all the paperwork and in less than two months he paid for it.

At that time there was only one similar machine in the area, in the Bistrița valley. He went there with an employee to see how it worked. He saw that it wasn't difficult, they went back home and within a month they got used to it. He began to cut logs into planks, poles and beams and so the workload increased rapidly. He had to hire two more men. With the T300 saw from Wood-Mizer and the two extra men, he was now doing triple production. In this way he was able to increase both the production capacity and the value of the products.

The desire to add value to wood has prompted other machinery purchases

Then he plucked up courage and bought more machinery; he got a tractor, bought cars to transport the timber, hired more people; he better organized the place where he was operating - an old flax smelter. But then the crisis came and things stagnated. Even though he still wanted more machinery, he didn't have the courage to take on more debt at the bank.

But after the crisis, in 2013, he bought his second Wood-Mizer, an LT 70 saw. It was more powerful, with an automatic log-loading belt and a belt for removing timber. It produced quality products and started exporting. It exported by its own forces to nearby countries (Greece), but to send to Arab countries it used export companies. The infrastructure needed to send wood by sea was impossible to sustain for such a small company.

In 2015 he also got a Wood-Mizer saw for thin wood - LT15 - which he uses less often, and in 2019, the new Wood-Mizer saw, WM 4000. He bought this one at a more difficult time for the export business. In Europe, a bark beetle had broken out in softwoods and the timber was heavily cut. The softwood market was flooded with green wood and the price dropped dramatically. He realized then that if he processed the wood more, his chances in the market would be better.

Challenges and plans for the future

Ionică Ștefănoaia sadly recounts that people eager to learn a trade are disappearing, that it is getting harder and harder to find people who are willing to work and who are also responsible, that press reports put all logging companies in the same pot. But they also have problems with the big companies that buy a lot and control the price of wood. When you have 0,11% market share at the country level, it's hard to stand out. Romsilva and the private forestry offices are the owners of the timber, the ones who sell it at auction. Companies bid for the amount they can harvest, buy it, cut it and process it. He knows that in order to keep up with the competition and the rising price of timber, the degree of processing has to increase. That's why he plans to buy a kiln. That way, the timber sold will fetch a better price.

He now has 37 employees, is continuously at work and has a hard time finding people to hire. He's even thought about bringing in outsiders, but it's a difficult field that requires training. He's trying to make everything more efficient, to exploit the wood with as little waste as possible, using high-performance machinery. He would like wood to stop being exported but to be processed here to add value. He knows that it is impossible to process all the wood to the furniture stage, but at least to get it as far as possible. It is thinking about the future in terms of investing in technology in order to increase the value of wood.

After spending half a day in Cornu Luncii, I understood the role that such logging companies play in the furniture and construction industries. Without them, solid wood furniture would not exist. Neither would roof trusses and rafters, wooden windows, doors and staircases, or attic beams and cladding. What we do need, however, is sustainable logging, nationwide reforestation programs, combating theft and corruption. The solution in a country with a tradition of wood processing and an important wood-processing industry is not to stop logging altogether, but to exploit it rationally and consciously, in a way that will not harm us, the planet or those who will come after us.