Metsä Tissue to build new factory in Goole, UK

Metsä Tissue announced that they have chosen Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, as the location for their new state-of-the-art tissue paper factory in the UK. This historic investment, totaling several hundred million pounds, will create the largest tissue paper factory in the UK and significantly reduce the amount of tissue products currently imported to the UK and Ireland each year. The new factory will create over 400 jobs at the facility and thousands more in the supply chain and local economy.

“Goole is the perfect location for this proposed investment. The Humber region provides a crucial gateway to the entire UK, and the region’s ambitions to bring cutting-edge green technology and jobs to the UK align with our ambitions for clean and sustainable manufacturing,”, said Esa Kaikkonen, CEO of Metsä Tissue.

Currently, up to 45% of tissue products are imported to the UK and Ireland. Metsä Tissue aims to replace nearly half of the imported products with locally produced British production, using fresh fiber pulp as the primary raw material from sustainably managed forests in the Nordic countries. Reducing import dependence will have a positive impact on productivity, carbon footprint, and the UK’s self-sufficiency in essential tissue products.

The Goole facility will employ cutting-edge sustainable production technologies to deliver an efficient and modern facility with world-class environmental performance. Metsä Tissue’s operations are sustainability-driven, with the goal of manufacturing all products from entirely fossil-free raw materials by 2030, as the company strives towards a net-zero society. Furthermore, our aim is for all our plants, including the new Goole facility, to operate without the use of fossil fuels by 2030.

Subject to planning and environmental permits and a final investment decision, the site will cover an area of approximately 200 acres and have the capacity to produce 240,000 tons of tissue paper, built in multiple phases over the next decade, serving both professional and consumer markets—an unprecedented level of tissue production in the UK. The planned facility would be the first major investment in the proposed Goole tax site within Humber Freeport, which aims to accelerate domestic investment in the Humber region.

“We are thrilled to announce our plan to invest in a world-class production site in Goole. This exciting investment would connect the UK and Finland by combining sustainable fresh wood fiber raw material from the Nordic countries with local production of world-class tissues in the UK. We are excited about how these plans can contribute to more sustainable tissue production in the UK, offering alternatives to currently imported tissue products. The project will significantly enhance Metsä Tissue’s presence in this country and underscores the importance of the UK market for our business in the coming years”, concluded Esa Kaikkonen.

Minister for Investment, Lord Dominic Johnson, said, “This investment is a huge vote of confidence in Goole, Yorkshire, and Humberside. With hundreds of millions of pounds committed and thousands of jobs created both at the new site and in the wider supply chain, this will have massive benefits for workers and businesses in Goole and many communities in East Riding, Yorkshire, Humberside, and North Lincolnshire. We know that Yorkshire is one of the best places in the country to invest, and today’s announcement from Metsä further cements this. Just last year, we saw 103 new projects in Yorkshire resulting from domestic investments, which together will create over 7,000 jobs.”