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A Fresh Look at Lumber in a Mature Texas Market

By April 11, 2019August 15th, 2019News

Although often thought of for oil and cattle, Texas also has deep roots in the lumber industry, dating back to the early nineteenth century. Sherwood Lumber entered the Texas market in the early 2000s with both a distribution center in Dallas and destination reload in Irving. Since then they’ve been at the forefront of customers’ needs, carrying a diverse mix of high quality products. Their expertise in distribution enables Sherwood customers to quickly obtain in-demand products to keep up with the booming housing market.

While the Texas Revolution was looming, Texas’ lumber industry was conceived and a number of sash sawmills began showing up in Eastern Texas, followed by steam sawmills, which appeared the late 1830s.  During the Bonanza Era (1880s-1930s) the railroad entered Texas, making the eastern region a hub for entrepreneurs wanting to build lumber-manufacturing plants. When the log debarker came into use after World War II, loggers were able to utilize more of a single tree, ultimately allowing for better production.

Today, lumber is still a thriving industry for Texas. The United States has 749 million acres of forest land (FAO 2007), with more than 200 million forested acres in the south. The south alone produces more timber than any country in the world. With the housing market in recovery and plenty of land available, Texas has seen a rise in demand for building materials, giving the lumber industry influence due to the affordability of housing.

As the market grows, so will customer needs. Sherwood Lumber’s Distribution Center provides custom reloading services for lumber and panel products. Direct truck and railcars are on site daily, and they have a large inventory on the ground, so they’re always ready for quick delivery to the Texas market. Sherwood also offers forward pricing to their Texas customers. Sherwood Lumber’s risk management team assesses their inventory risk along with forward risk to create a strategy and execution plan to increase customers’ bottom-line and add sales. Utilizing Sherwood’s Lumber Numbers, the risk management team is able to lower the customer’s lumber inventory cost and ultimately reduce their inventory risk.

Sherwood looks forward to continuing to be a reliable partner as buyers work to meet the rising demand of the Texas housing market.