Orders pour in for Peterson Portable

Peterson Portable Sawmills sales manager Layla Robinson and co-owner Chris Browne on the road to more US sales.

Rotorua's Peterson Portable Sawmills has seen export orders snowball since it set a production record at an industry event in Ohio, USA last year.

The company has recently added new distributors for the US and South Africa, has $500,000 in orders on its books already for this year, and could triple that by year-end, says co-owner Kerris Browne.

"We're looking for additional staff," she said. "The byproduct of our success at the Shootout is that it has really boosted our reputation a lot in the US. These customers are not keen on pushy salespeople - evidence a piece of machinery actually works well is very important to them."

The US success led to Peterson Portable finding the agent, based in California, who will represent the firm for the US market. The company also found a South African agent, after many years of looking for the right distributor after the collapse of its former representative.

In the US and South Africa, to date the company has sold factory direct to consumers, who find the company on the internet and get in touch by website or freephone.

"But we were only getting customers who were internet savvy," she said. "We were missing the customers that were a bit behind in using the internet. Now we'll be able to open up the segment of the market that only goes to its own local A&P show."

Peterson Portable is also seeing strong sales interest through its agent in Papua New Guinea. PNG has already taken one container this year " another will be loading next month " and the company is hoping to ship a further two containers this year.

The sales surge means the company is looking to hire three additional factory staff. They need a welder and a salesperson to respond to international sales queries. The company is also looking to hire an engineer/factory foreman to take some of the load off co-owner and factory manager Chris Browne, Kerris' husband. The aim is to hire someone with the potential to eventually take over the factory manager's role.

In an interview from the US - where he is on a sales visit with sales manager Layla Robinson - Mr Browne said the company was "absolutely inundated" with orders.

"The biggest issue at the moment is that the guys in the factory are just looking at us sideways because orders are coming in way faster than they can put them out right now," he said.

"It makes it tough for me to be in several places at once. But it's a good problem to have."

Peterson Portable Sawmills:

* Shoot-Out record: 988 board feet per hour with its manually operated winch production frame

* Where: Great Portable Sawmill Shoot-Out organised by the Independent Sawmill and Woodlot Magazine in Ohio, USA