[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:05] Speaker B: Hello everybody and welcome to Distribution Unpacked. My name is Charles McLaughlin and with me today is Kerry Chapman, the national account manager at Silvamo. Kerry, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Of course. Why don’t you take a moment to introduce yourself and your role at Silvamo?
[00:00:22] Speaker A: So like he said, my name is Carrie Chapman. I am the national account manager for the SP Richards account.
And I have been with Silvamo, which was formerly International paper for about 12 years now. And everything sp. Now we help with all of the dealers. I have three regional account managers that work for me that call, they travel the whole country, call on all the dealers specifically, and I handle more of the corporate account and get to work with you guys.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: And we’re thrilled about that. So it’s been a great partnership. And one of the things I’m curious about in all your tenure here now as we go into, you know, 2026, what are some of the market trends that you’re seeing in copy paper, in this wholesale distribution channel, in these corporate accounts and where are you guys choosing to focus, which on those trends?
[00:01:09] Speaker A: So a lot of the market trends, you know, education, sustainability is a big one, us being a paper company. Yeah. A lot of consumers just, you know, they think that we are out there clear cutting forests. And that is something that we are really always trying to retell our story, let people know that we are very sustainability focused. All of our papers are FSC or SFI certified.
There’s no clear cutting involved. We buy all of our trees from local farmers that live near our mills.
And, you know, we make sure that we’re maintaining the natural habitats and replanting the trees for future use as well.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Great. So you mentioned the sustainability initiatives and when I look at some of the vertical markets, you mentioned education being a big one. But then you have, you know, other government agencies and maybe some enterprise corporate offices as well. What are some of those initiatives that are specific to those vertical markets? What demands are unique to some of those markets and how are you adapting to service those customers directly?
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah, so I mean, obviously there’s differing needs for all of these different verticals, differing service needs, price points. And because we are more brand and private label focused, we do tend to focus more on enterprise and small to medium business. However, we are still relevant in the education space.
You know, that is much more of a low cost paper that they are generally needing. But they, we make Hammermill colors. We have nine different offerings for the Hammermill colors and teachers are generally buying a lot of colored paper. In the government space, we, we have our great white, 30% recycled and a lot of government agencies are required to buy recycled paper.
So those are some ways that we do try to get into those different verticals where we’re not generally focusing great
[00:03:09] Speaker B: and meeting some of those kind of contract requirements. That’s a big deal for our customers.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Well, and one thing too, like in the enterprise space, we do usually have more of an opportunity to upsell with our premium papers. So that is also something we try to focus on as well.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Who doesn’t love a high quality memo, you know, delivered on a beautiful bright white card like thick stock? Right, That’s, I’m always impressed when people spring for the nice HP paper. So and that’s always, it’s always a nice product to see. So how can our customers, as they enter some of these markets, adapt to some of these trends? How can they succeed bringing Silvamo and HP Paper to market?
[00:03:51] Speaker A: Yeah, so I think a lot of it is about how can they succeed, but also how can we help them succeed. And you know, I don’t know that I’ve mentioned it, but like we do make HP papers, we’re the only manufacturer for that brand. And then we own the Hammermill brand. And those are the most well known iconic brands in the U.S. hammermill is the number one business brand HP. Of course you have the system sell. So a lot of consumers that are buying the HP copiers and printers and ink, they like to have the HP paper to go along with it.
And I think for working with the dealers, having access to our brands helps them get into different small and medium and enterprise businesses. And I think it gives us access to dealers that we may not have typically worked with or that we may not have their business.
And so, and then of course you mix in the SP brands, we make the Business Source as well. And so you can mix truckloads to deliver to these dealers with your brands and our brands.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: Which I think is a win win for everybody.
[00:04:58] Speaker B: Absolutely. You can fill the truck with meeting that like good, better, best, like need as well across the office.
That’s a huge deal. And then it’s nice that you have the opportunity, not just for our end, our customers to offer like to try and sell HP or Hammer Mill or Business Source to a new customer, but to potentially maybe upsell them as well. It’s like, hey, I know Business Source has been popular with you guys, but for those executive needs, you should consider the next level up and it’s got to be much easier to kind of transition people up the product line than to knock on new doors, essentially.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. We have a huge portfolio of different offerings from your everyday copy paper to your premium. So there’s always something for everybody.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: That’s awesome. So the next question here, this is one that’s kind of a tradition we ask on every episode. Our tagline here at SP Richards is simplifying complexity. So we always like to ask our guest is, you know, what complexity of probably the many complexities that are out there in the wholesale distribution channel, and which one are you focused on and how are you simplifying that complexity for our. For our customers?
[00:06:06] Speaker A: That’s a tough one. Paper is a very complex industry. And as you know, Silvano is going through a lot of changes right now. We are exiting one of our mills that was owned or is owned by International Paper. We are in making huge investments in some of our other mills to speed up the paper making process and so that we can service more people.
But one thing that we’re always doing, and especially right now, is portfolio management and SKU rationalization, making sure that what we are making is in demand.
Obviously, E Commerce is continuing to grow. How can we service more that side of the business? So we’re making small, smaller packs that are easier to ship.
And I think just making sure that we’re looking at the market and what is being demanded and how can we make our papers work for the different verticals.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Right. And then being able to deliver on those smaller transactions through E Commerce is something that we’ve been looking at as well. So it’s great to have a partner in you guys where you’re having those SKU offerings that you’re able to kind of facilitate those sales and make it easy for our customers to expand their E Commerce business. Because I know copy paper is such a huge portion of a lot of these traditional office products dealers business. So it’s great that they can kind of continue to grow that part of their business while they’re maybe considering entering new markets like that. Core is just so important to support.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Right. Well, and that’s where you guys come in and help us a lot. Because obviously, as a, you know, manufacturer of something that is not easy to ship, right.
Y’ all can buy it and distribute it much better than we can. So that’s where we really rely on you and getting us into these customers. And so we really value the partnership
[00:07:54] Speaker B: between Salvamo and yeah, it’s a beautiful partnership. We value it highly as well. So as we close, I wanted to make sure I gave you a final opportunity here. Is there anything else you want to bring to our community of distributors here as we wrap the show today? Anything else about you or Silvamo that we want to mention before we wrap up?
[00:08:14] Speaker A: I think we just want to make sure that everyone knows that we are in it for the long haul.
We are very focused on our brands. We value the relationship with SP very much. And we just want to keep growing with you guys.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Keep growing. I love the sounds of that. Well, Kerry, thank you so much for coming on the show today. It was great to chat with you. And thank you all so much for watching. Have a great day. Thanks, everybody.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Thanks for having me.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: Of course.
