Brazilian pulp producer Fibria tops annual raw material supplier survey among UPM Communication Papers and UPM Specialty Papers stakeholders
The right suppliers can mean the difference between happy and dissatisfied customers. For a company like UPM, ensuring the reliability of its supply chain is of utmost importance. Since 2012, UPM Sourcing has standardised the process of evaluating the raw material suppliers for UPM Paper Businesses and has honoured the best as Supplier of the Year.
This year, the honour went to Fibria, a Brazilian pulp company that supplies both UPM Communication Papers and Specialty Papers with hardwood eucalyptus pulp. While most of the pulp Fibria supplies goes to the Nordland and Changsu paper mills, all 18 UPM mills were part of the evaluation process. Fibria was chosen among a pool of 60 raw materials suppliers of products including chemicals, packaging, paper machine clothing, pigments, pulp, production consumables, starch and latex. The suppliers were evaluated based on 13 points related to technical performance and product quality, among others, by UPM sourcing category personnel worldwide.
“Fibria did well across the board,” Pete Ijäs, Sourcing Analyst, said. Fibria showed the kind of reliability that we value, as maintaining supply security is very important to us here at UPM.”
Lassi Virtanen, Director, Pulp Sourcing, agreed. “We look forward to developing long-term strategic partnerships with suppliers like Fibria that are aligned with UPM’s vision of sustainability and a future Beyond Fossils.”
The Supplier of the Year Award was presented to Fibria during the London Pulp Week Symposium in November.