Bedford Paper is very different than most other converting companies

Bedford Paper is a tissue converting company located in De Pere, Wisconsin. With more than 10 years in the business, the company constantly invests in improvements in its industrial sites and in optimizations in its production process. In the last Talk Tissue, Brian Uzcategui talked to Steve Peters, President at Bedford Paper and he told us a little bit about the company.

“Today we have three primary operating lines in our main building – in De Pere -, all highly automated, modern current day equipment and we do a fair amount of contract converting on those, so we have our own Bedford Paper brand,” says Steve. “We have a second location in Green Bay and we use it primarily for warehousing, we have a couple smaller lines that are a little bit more manual oriented at that particular facility”

Giving greater insight into the production at De Pere, Steve comments that “in this facility, our core competency is that we have a large ready multi-fold line. It’s all commercial products running various different substrates. We have a paper converting 550 industrial line making hard wound towel, general tissue, center pull, all automated. Both those lines connecting to a robot and back end.”

At their facility, Bedford Paper can make a full range of products and about three years ago, the company has installed another paper converting line so they could serve both the Away from Home market and the retail market.

The company has been on a strong growth program for several years all the way to the point that they have outgrown the size of their building and needed to look for a new location to expand.

“We have been working in the local area to obtain a new parcel of land which is just down the road from our current address, by about half a mile. We have acquired 30 acres of land and we are building a 350,000 square foot building, ’explains Steve. “We’re going to consolidate the equipment that we have at both locations into this new location.”

Recently Bedford Paper purchased a full showcase packaging line from Infinity Machine and Steve explained the motivations behind this acquisition. “As well as part of our expansion is that we acquire some new assets, so in the acquisition of those assets, we teamed up with Infinity to be on the back end of the tissue converting winder that we’re going to have, where we are going to have a dual-leg system: two wrappers, two bundlers, two case packers and onto a fully robotic program where we can palletize virtually any format that you find at the retail end or certainly until the AFH wrap.”

The company has also acquired a brand new 800-meter consumer line with splicing in the back so they would have four back stands so they can have four parent rolls on there but doing two ply to two ply product, with full lamination and much more control over the technology they have on this particular line.

All these investments and the focus on both consumer products and AFH make Bedford Paper a very versatile company, that can meet the demand whatever it might be.

“Now we have the flexibility to serve both the consumer and the commercial market segment. This new line positions us much better and much more forward relative to kitchen roll towel format,” says Steve, when comparing the company today versus three years ago.

Bedford Paper have put themselves in a very strategic position and Steve detailed what sets them apart from the competition. “We are very different than most other converting companies out there. Being an independent converter and our commitment to technology and robotics puts us in a different operating platform relative to our business. We are able to operate in a very lean and more forward way with our people.”

Do not miss the complete Talk Tissue with Steve Peters, from Bedford Paper: