Sutcliffe Trading was founded in 1988 by Bill Sutcliffe as an independent timber merchant serving New Zealand's timber industry. Before that he spent 23 years in sales at New Zealand Forest Products at Kinleith, finishing as Remanufacturing Sales Manager with five factories under him. That role put him inside the packaging trades: kiwifruit and squash, the Dairy Board, ABC crates, wharf dunnage, and the pallet manufacturers.
He left the corporate world for a sawmill job near his land at Katikati. When that mill went into receivership, the receiver began retailing from the mill site despite the word Bill had given the local timber merchants. Bill walked out the same day.
The phone rang almost immediately. One of the country's largest timber packaging buyers, a customer Bill knew inside out, needed a full season's supply found for him. Bill fronted up to the mills with the shopping list, borrowed car and lunch money in pocket, and put his own name behind the account. Sutcliffe Trading started there, in 1988.
Nearly four decades on, the business still works much the same way. We know the mills, we know what our customers need, and both sides deal with people who have been in the industry long enough to give a straight answer.
