Wood-derived products
Everything a kraft mill makes that is not pulp, and it is worth more than people expect.
Paper in reels, pellets pressed from the residue, and the chemistry recovered from the cooking liquor — tall oil and lignosulphonates. Four products from one process, each sold into a different industry, each with a certification regime that decides the trade.
Kraft paper
Bought on grammage. Rejected on strength.
Unbleached northern conifer kraft in reels. Long softwood fibre grown slowly in a cold climate is what gives this paper its tear and tensile strength, and it is the reason a sack made from it survives being dropped and a sack made from short-fibre paper does not.
Grammage is the first line of every enquiry and the least discriminating property in the specification. Two reels at the same grammage can differ substantially in every strength property that matters, so the specification has to carry the strength figures and the test methods with them.
- Grammage
- Grams per square metre, with the tolerance. The tolerance is not a formality — it is what your converter's running weight calculation depends on.
- Tensile and tensile index
- Machine and cross direction, with the method named. Tensile index normalises tensile to grammage, which is what makes two grammages comparable.
- Tear resistance
- Elmendorf, machine and cross direction. The property that decides whether a sack survives handling.
- Burst strength
- Mullen. Commonly specified as a burst index against grammage.
- Stretch
- Relevant on sack grades — extensible kraft absorbs shock loading instead of tearing, and it is a different paper from standard kraft at the same grammage.
- Porosity
- Gurley or Bendtsen. Governs how fast air escapes when a sack is filled at speed. A converter running a high-speed filling line cares about this more than about tensile.
- Moisture
- Typically in the 6–9% range as delivered, and it changes in transit and in the warehouse. Reels that have taken moisture run badly and may not run at all.
- Reel dimensions
- Width, diameter, core diameter, winding direction and splice policy. A reel your machine cannot mount is not paper, it is a storage problem.
Greaseproof
Two ways to make paper resist grease, and one of them is being restricted.
Genuine greaseproof is made mechanically: the pulp is refined until the fibres are so hydrated and closely packed that the sheet itself resists oil. Nothing is added. The alternative is to treat an ordinary sheet with a fluorochemical, and fluorochemicals are PFAS.
PFAS in food-contact packaging is now restricted in the European Union under the packaging regulation that took effect in August 2026, and it is restricted or being phased out in the United States and in a number of national markets on their own timetables. The detail and the thresholds differ by jurisdiction and have moved more than once, so we confirm the current position for your specific destination rather than quote a threshold that may already be out of date.
What that means practically is that the enquiry has to say which route is acceptable. Genuine greaseproof and other non-fluorochemical barriers are available and are what most European converters are now specifying; a fluorochemical-treated sheet may be cheaper and may be unusable where you intend to sell.
- Grease resistance
- Specified as a performance figure with the test method named — the Kit test measures fluorochemical repellency specifically, so on a non-fluorochemical sheet a different method has to be used and the specification must say which.
- Food contact compliance
- Declaration of compliance for the intended food type and contact conditions, under the framework applying at the destination, with the supporting migration data.
- PFAS status
- Stated explicitly on the offer — treated or untreated — not left to be inferred from a grade name.
Wood pellets
A fuel specification, a certification scheme, and a safety brief.
Pellets are traded against ISO 17225-2, which sets property classes for residential and industrial use. ENplus is the certification scheme built on top of it, and for industrial biomass a sustainability certification usually sits alongside.
| Property | Why it is in the contract |
|---|---|
| Diameter and length | 6 mm or 8 mm. Feed systems are built for one; the wrong diameter jams a domestic auger and disturbs an industrial one. |
| Moisture | Governs calorific value and, more importantly, whether the pellet holds together. Wet pellets crumble. |
| Ash content | The property that separates the classes. Higher ash means more frequent cleaning and, in a domestic appliance, a warranty argument. |
| Ash melting behaviour | Where the ash softens and fuses into clinker in the grate. Low deformation temperature is a boiler problem, not a fuel-quality footnote. |
| Mechanical durability and fines | How much of the cargo survives handling as pellets rather than as dust. Fines are a feed problem, a combustion problem and an explosion hazard. |
| Calorific value | Net calorific value as received, which is what the boiler actually gets. |
| Chlorine, sulphur and nitrogen | Corrosion and emissions. Industrial buyers with emissions limits specify these tightly. |
| Additives | Declared with type and percentage. An undeclared binder is a specification failure regardless of whether it does any harm. |
Tall oil
A pulping by-product that biofuel demand repriced.
Crude tall oil is recovered from the black liquor of kraft pulping and fractionated into fatty acids, rosin and pitch. It was a chemical feedstock for adhesives, coatings, inks and surfactants for decades, and then renewable-fuel policy discovered it as an advanced biofuel feedstock and the price stopped being set by the chemical industry.
- Crude tall oil (CTO)
- The unrefined recovered oil. Specified on acid number, rosin and fatty acid content, unsaponifiables, moisture and impurities.
- Tall oil fatty acid (TOFA)
- The distilled fatty acid fraction. Into dimer acids, surfactants, alkyd resins and lubricants. Specified on acid value, rosin content, colour and iodine value.
- Tall oil rosin (TOR)
- The rosin fraction. Into adhesives, tackifiers, inks and paper sizing. Specified on softening point, acid number and colour.
- Distilled tall oil (DTO)
- Intermediate fractions with a defined rosin content, into coatings and industrial applications.
- Tall oil pitch
- The distillation residue, into energy and specific chemical uses.
Lignosulphonates
Powder and liquid, and the sugar content decides the application.
Recovered from sulphite pulping liquor, supplied as calcium, sodium or magnesium salts, in powder or as a solution. A genuinely versatile material: plasticiser, dispersant, binder and dust suppressant, in four industries that ask entirely different questions of it.
- Concrete admixture
- As a water-reducing plasticiser, evaluated under EN 934-2. The property to watch is reducing sugar content: residual sugars retard the set, and a batch with higher sugars than the one before will hold a pour open longer than the site expects. Where the material goes into concrete, sugar content belongs in the specification with a maximum, not merely on the analysis.
- Dust suppression
- On unpaved roads, stockpiles and haul routes. Specified on dry solids and application rate; performance is a function of both and of the surface it is applied to.
- Animal feed binding
- As a pellet binder. Feed-grade material has its own compliance requirements at the destination, and feed grade and industrial grade are not interchangeable in either direction.
- Ceramics, gypsum and agriculture
- As a deflocculant and green-strength binder in ceramic bodies, as a set retarder in gypsum, and as a chelating agent in micronutrient formulations.
Straight answer
What it is not, said before you find out.
- We supply paper, not packaging
- No containerboard, no corrugated grades, no converted sacks or bags. Kraft is supplied in reels to converters and users; the conversion is theirs. If you need finished packaging, we are the wrong counterparty and will say so on the first call.
- Grammage is not a specification
- Strength properties with named test methods are. An enquiry that gives only a grammage can be quoted against, but the quotation will be for the cheapest paper that meets it.
- PFAS status is not a detail on greaseproof
- It decides whether the paper is usable at the destination. Restrictions differ by market and have moved repeatedly; we confirm the current position rather than quote a threshold from memory.
- Pellet storage is a safety obligation, not housekeeping
- Carbon monoxide off-gassing and oxygen depletion in enclosed stores have killed people. Ventilation and monitoring before entry are the receiving party's, and we will put that in the offer.
- Uncertified biofuel feedstock cannot be certified later
- Chain of custody for a renewable pathway is built at origin. Material that arrives without it is worth the industrial price, not the pathway price, and no amount of documentation afterwards changes that.
- Liquid lignosulphonate is mostly water
- Over distance, powder is usually the cheaper delivered form even at a higher unit price. We will run that comparison rather than quote whichever form you asked for.
How to specify
What each of these needs in the enquiry.
Everything in this section is bought to your order rather than held in stock, so the specification is settled before production rather than matched to whatever is available. Give us the specification and the timing in the same message.
- Kraft and greaseproof
- Grade and grammage with tolerance; the strength properties that matter for your line, with test methods; reel width, diameter, core and winding direction; for greaseproof, the grease-resistance requirement with its method, the food-contact framework at the destination, and whether fluorochemical treatment is acceptable.
- Wood pellets
- Diameter; the ISO 17225-2 class or the individual property limits; ENplus or industrial certification and which scheme; sustainability evidence required at the destination; delivery form — bulk, big bag or bagged — and the discharge and storage arrangement at your end.
- Tall oil derivatives
- Which fraction; the specification parameters for your process; the end use, so the sustainability requirement can be settled at enquiry; tank or drum, and heating requirements for the route.
- Lignosulphonates
- Cation; powder or liquid; dry solids; pH; maximum reducing sugars where the material is going into concrete or gypsum; feed grade where applicable; packing and volume per delivery.
- All of them
- Destination port and country, quantity per period, and whether this is a trial parcel or a programme. Certification requirements are cheaper to build in at the start than to retrofit at the second shipment.
Enquiries
Every enquiry is answered by the desk that handles it.
Send the product, quantity, delivery basis, destination and timing. We revert with availability, an indication and the documentation that accompanies it. Specifications are released once we know who we are speaking with.