As an international supplier of premium plywood, shipping to some of North America’s largest distributors, Richmond Plywood Corporation Limited (Richply®) is a 68-year-old employee-owned thought leader in the local engineered wood industry established in 1956. Ensuring that sustainable forestry practices underscore every product it sells, this formidable team of 420 gives new meaning to making intelligently cultivated wood the obvious choice for formwork, sheathing, specialty overlays, and other functions.
Based in Richmond, British Columbia, at a 26-acre facility overlooking the Fraser River, which links it with one of the planet’s richest evergreen forests, the company’s mill processes around 500,000 cubic metres of wood, producing in the region of 225 million square feet of 3/8” various types of sheeting and panels annually.
While some sawmills may slow down operations during slump periods, Richply®, thanks to its over 50 percent employee ownership, is always up and running. “Our distributors buy from us because they know it’s quality; they know they don’t have to question it. Coming from Richply®, they know it’s a superior product,” says Bhavjit Thandi, Chief Financial Officer.
Thandi joined the company in 2021, hitting the ground running. His hard work was worth the effort, as the young executive received a Canadian Forest Industry’s Top 20 under 40 Award in 2023, preceded by North American Woodworking Network Top 40 under 40 in 2022. The achievement is one he shares with the rest of the Richply® team as it takes so many people to run the cogs of this great company. Indeed, its tradition of teamwork has led the operation to success and will surely continue to do so for years to come.
With its impressively low turnover, customers benefit from the company’s wealth of collective knowledge. Its staff also enjoy thorough in-house training, keeping their skills relevant and the company’s systems sleek. As such, Richply® also puts a strong emphasis on community wellness, always working with integrity and its people’s safety top of mind.
At Richply®, remaining competitive means staying in stride with the latest technology while becoming increasingly more ecologically sustainable. To this end—and creating 14 more jobs in the process—the company recently received a $2.3 million grant from the British Columbia government as part of the Manufacturing Jobs Fund program, alongside a $6.7 million grant from Natural Resources Canada under the Investments in Forest Industry Transformation (IFIT) program. These grants form part of a $18.7 million improvement project that will see the further implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and other next-generation machinery that promise to lead the company into a bright new future.
These upgrades were crucial to the company’s relevance in the international market, and therefore, its longevity. Within the context of British Columbia’s strict legislation around forestry, growth management, and fiber processing, investing in high-end equipment capable of extracting as much value from valuable resources as possible is making all the difference.
As part of its commitment to sustainability, the company adheres to Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) certifications. In addition, there is international legislation in play, such as the European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR) and the United States Lacey Act, which ensure that wood sold on the global market is harvested and processed sustainably and to exacting specifications.
“We have a lot of laws and regulations that we abide by compared to some of the cheaper producers in the world where they have no ethical regulations,” Thandi says, highlighting the effects of indiscriminate harvesting, a practice Richply® considers best avoided. As Canada does not tax wood imports like the United States does, its lumber industry is largely at the mercy of Canadian buyers—companies that choose to do the right thing by supporting local industry over unregulated and uncertified imports.
Now, engaging in responsible practices combined with artificial intelligence allows the company to achieve more with lower volumes of wood. In addition, Richply® is strategizing to overcome challenges posed by local legislation curtailing the felling of old trees. As these old-growth trees render the best fiber, coming up with viable solutions is paramount to maintaining outstanding quality and continued high-volume output. Thanks to its large recent investments, however, implementing ever-evolving solutions is underway. By improving its use of second-growth fiber through better engineering, smarter planning, avoiding waste, and implementing more sophisticated equipment, the Richply® team is confident of its future.
To be sure, the company has always been known for being forward-thinking. As such, it implemented biomass-powered steam boilers before doing so was rewarded or sustainability became a trend. Furthermore, Richply® introduced an energy-efficient backup boiler just last year. This grand occasion was marked by a visit from former British Columbia Minister of Forests, the Honourable Bruce Ralston, who inaugurated the machine and performed the ribbon-cutting. Ralston was accompanied by Assistant Deputy Minister Sarah Fraser and joined by members of the legislative assembly Henry Yao and Aman Singh.
The result of using biomass-fueled boilers is that they enable the company to use the entire mass of all its lumber, sending much of the appropriate sundry chips to paper mills, therefore producing no wood waste whatsoever. Thandi highlights that it is a common misconception among members of the public that facilities like Richply®’s clear-cut trees, when in fact the opposite is true. Here, strict forest management principles reign, for the simple reason that unmanaged forests do not render the yields the company needs to exist, to say nothing of the ecological imperative.
Indeed, Richply® has a proud history of this sort of future planning. It also has its roots in a vision of excellence. Established in 1956 by 300 brave individuals who each invested large sums in the company, they bought the land the company sits on today, rolled up their sleeves, and set to work. Today, as shareholders retire, they can sell their shares back into the business. “The reason the company is buying back shares is because it is implementing machinery and artificial intelligence,” Thandi explains.
In the process, staff in manual roles who are being “replaced” by machines are in fact promoted to better positions. Shareholders also enjoy various benefits like profit sharing, a good income, pension plans, and more. Richply® also has a notable social mandate. While supporting First Nations people and businesses, it also supports visible minority groups by providing opportunities for a better future to those who may otherwise have struggled to set themselves up in the local economy.
Of course, running a company with so many stakeholders takes careful planning. Thus, there is an annual election of a board of seven directors working in non-manual labor positions, which is reported to by the company president and in turn reports to the shareholders. This election is followed by the election of a vice president and a chairperson. This group of leaders is supported by an executive team, which includes the chief financial officer, manager of log supply, and the general manager as well as a vice president of sales and marketing, who all report to the company president.
Richply®‘s remarkable success story continues to turn heads. The company has been nominated for two prestigious accolades: Softwood Plywood Manufacturing Company of the Year in Canada 2025 and a spot on Business in Vancouver’s 2024 list of British Columbia’s largest forestry companies. We’re excited to see what the future holds and are certainly cheering for its well-deserved recognition. “We have a good thing going here. We’re winning awards,” Thandi says proudly.
With so much going well for this wood giant, it is clear that whatever challenges arise in the future will be overcome with the company’s signature sense of courage and pragmatism. Considering the decades of hard work that mark its character today, Richply® is certainly set to become one of Canada’s most outstanding legacy companies in years to come.
