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RONA Certification Policy Update
Canadian DIY giant RONA Inc. unveiled new initiatives in late September related to the introduction of its wood products procurement policy put in place last year. The Boucherville, Que.-headquartered retailer said it had put the policy in place to protect forests and offer Canadian consumers products from certified forests.

The new initiatives include new signage in its corporate and franchise stores to inform consumers that 90% of the softwood lumber for sale in the store is from forests certified by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

 In addition, RONA has also announced that five of its stores will now exclusively offer softwood lumber from FSC certified forests. A company press release said, “Currently, wood from FSC certified forests is not widely available in Canada and RONA wants to make it easier for consumers to have access to such products.”

RONA’s goal is to have 100% of the softwood lumber for sale in its corporate and franchise stores to be from certified forests by 2010.

Morbark Dealer Expansion
Morbark from Winn, Mich., has been busy over the past few months, expanding its dealer network in several areas of the country. Warrior Tractor, based in Northport, Ala., will represent Morbark’s recycling and forestry product lines in Alabama, Arkansas and three counties in Tennessee (Wayne, Lawrence and Giles). Warrior Tractor currently has 12 branch locations in Alabama and Arkansas.

In Florida, Nortrax Equipment Southeast Region has joined the Morbark dealer network, while Nortrax branches in Tennessee have also become dealers for Morbark as of mid September. The company’s Tennessee branches will handle Morbark’s complete industrial line including tub and horizontal grinders, whole tree chippers, chiparvestors and flails.
Nortrax Inc. is also the largest John Deere Dealership group for construction, mining, and forestry equipment in North America and extends across the eastern and central portions of the United States and Canada.

Prentice Title Unchanged
Contenders at the Prentice Loader Championship event held in early September at the Lake States Logging Congress in Escanaba, Mich., were unable to unseat the reigning champion, Chad Miskovich of Wakefield, Mich. Miskovich, who has won the contest for the past 10 years in a row, beat out approximately 90 other contestants in his bid to retain the title.

Miskovich, who was running a new Prentice 2384 B-Series machine, donated the $200 contest winnings to Log a Load for Kids. Through Log a Load for Kids, the forest industry contributes money to children’s hospitals.

November 14, 2011  By  Cheryl Quinn