Business View Magazine | May 2021

62 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE MAY 2021 PORT HAWKESBURY PAPER Port Hawkesbury Paper manufactures supercalendered paper for the magazine, catalog, and inserts industry. Supercalendered paper, a non-coated paper variety, gets its name from the supercalender finishing process. The process adds a high-gloss finish to the paper by passing it through a series of rollers. Compared to coated paper, supercalendered paper provides a high-quality finish at a competitive price because it does not use clay as a coating agent but rather as an integral part of the sheet. “Our paper is used for magazines, catalogs, direct mail, gift wrap, retail inserts and specialty packaging applications,” says Bevan Lock, Co-Mill Manager at Port Hawkesbury Paper. Although most other industry segments are going paperless, Lock sees the company’s wide range of competitively priced products and a specialized customer base as two reasons they continue to see steady operations amid the wave of digitization engulfing other industries. “Port Hawkesbury Paper’s mill has been around since the early 1960s,” says Lock. “By the ‘70s, the company had started manufacturing newsprint paper, which it continued to do over the following decades.” In 1998, the firm pivoted again, becoming one of the largest and fastest supercalendered paper mills in the world at that time. In 2011, the plant shut down and remained closed until 2012 when Stern Partners, a private equity firm based in Vancouver, BC, purchased its assets, including its non-operational paper manufacturing plant. Lock reports, “Through a series of strategic investments, the company