• Location & Infrastructure

    • Wood Products Companies in Virginia

    Strategic Mid-Atlantic Location

    Virginia’s location offers major advantages for the wood products and related industries. Virginia is located within the Southeastern “wood basket” region, which supplies over 60% of the total volume of timber harvested in the U.S. The Commonwealth’s central position on the East Coast is ideal for import and export of wood products through The Port of Virginia and provides ready access to suppliers and to major hubs of economic activity along the Northeast corridor, across the Southeast, and throughout the Midwest. 

    Virginia is located within the Southeastern “wood basket” region, which supplies over 60% of the total volume of timber harvested in the U.S.

    Location Map by hours

    Logistically, the access that Virginia has fits our business model, and from a resource standpoint, Virginia cannot be beat. All of these factors have played an important part in leading us to Virginia, and we look forward to a long and prosperous future here.

    Darren Whitmer President and General Manager, Speyside Bourbon Cooperage, Inc.

    Read the case study

    World-Class Logistics Infrastructure

    In Virginia, a modern and expanding network of roads, railways, ports, and airports allows for efficient operational logistics — domestically and internationally — and a consistent flow of cargo. Virginia’s transportation system is integrated with the Eastern United States’ vast network of highways, interstates, and double-stack freight rail. This transportation system connects several important manufacturing and population centers across the Southeast, Northeast, and nation’s Heartland with The Port of Virginia’s three deepwater marine terminals in Norfolk Harbor and two inland port locations. The port, through its $1.4 billion Gateway Investment Project, is expanding its assets, capabilities, and reach and creating one of the most advanced ports in the Western Hemisphere. 

    6 major interstates

    including major North-South and East-West trucking routes

    180K TEUs

    of paperboard, paper, and wood pulp moved through The Port of Virginia in 2022

    $1.4B

    modernization and expansion project on track to create the deepest, widest, and safest commercial shipping channels and harbor on the East Coast

    Thriving Wood Products Industry Ecosystem

    Virginia’s thriving wood products ecosystem provides companies with access to the suppliers, partners, and customers they need to prosper. Sustained by Virginia’s abundant, renewable timber resources, this industry ecosystem spans the entire value chain, from forestry to primary wood processing, manufacturing of engineered and finished wood products and paper and packaging, and a growing wood byproducts industry.

    Wood Products Logo Map 2023 wide

    Wood Products Value Chain in Virginia

    Virginia’s wood products industry spans the entire value chain, from a thriving forestry sector to primary wood processing, engineered wood products, finished wood products manufacturing, paper and packaging manufacturing, and a growing wood byproducts industry. In this thriving ecosystem, companies have access to the suppliers, partners, and customers they need to prosper.

    Sawmills

    Virginia’s 150+ sawmills, which employ more than 4,100 people, produce primarily hardwood (72% in 2016). In 2019, Virginia had a total production of over a half million MCF of timber production resulting in nearly 7 billion board feet. ArborTech in Blackstone is the largest producer of southern yellow pine board footage. Virginia is the northernmost state with access to yellow pine. 

    Engineered wood products (mass timber)

    Virginia is home to 99 companies, employing over 5,700 people, that manufacture a wide range of traditional and innovative wood products — veneer, plywood, engineered wood products, and similar products. 

    Finished wood products (furniture, cabinets, etc.)

    Virginia is home to 450+ companies that produce finished wood products like furniture and cabinets, and employ almost 10,000 people. Historically, Virginia was part of an industry cluster that constituted a third of furniture manufacturing in the U.S. Finished wood products remain a thriving industry subsector in Virginia, as furniture companies have moved toward higher-end manufacturing. 

    Paper and packaging

    Virginia’s 120+ paper and packaging companies, which employ almost 8,000 people, include major Fortune 500 companies like WestRock and International Paper. Several regions across Virginia have paper packaging clusters such as the Roanoke Region, Greater Richmond, and the Shenandoah Valley due to their strategic proximity to major interstates and customers. 

    WestRock, Richmond

    WestRock, Richmond

    WestRock Company Produces Sustainable, Innovative Packaging

    WestRock has built a strong reputation for sustainable forestry and positive environmental practices and employs approximately 3,500 workers across its nine Virginia facilities, primarily manufacturing paperboard and container board products. The company’s locations throughout the Greater Richmond region remain the center of its consumer packaging business, which represents about half of its $14.5 billion annual revenue. In 2018, WestRock announced plans to invest $248.4 million over a five-year period in its manufacturing operations in the City of Covington, the company’s largest facility in Virginia manufacturing cardboard packaging, and in Alleghany County. These investments will be used to purchase new equipment designed to improve productivity at the paper mill and extruding facility, as well as to increase employee training. 

    America’s Top State for Talent

    Ranked No. 1 in the U.S. for education by CNBC, Virginia is home to more than 225,000 workers in the wood products industry and related occupations. Employers can draw from the tens of thousands of skilled manufacturing workers in Virginia and from the thousands of service members who exit the armed services in the Commonwealth each year. Virginia is home to excellent K-12 schools — No. 1 in the South and No. 5 in the U.S. according to WalletHub — and the No. 2 higher education system in the U.S. according to SmartAsset, ensuring a steady flow of new talent every year. 

    WalletHub_Best Public Schools in the South_2023
    CNBC_#1_Education_2023
    Business Facilities_#1_Training_2023

    Dynamic Centers of Innovation

    Virginia ranks 11th nationwide and 2nd in the Southeast in research spending in areas relevant to wood products manufacturing. Virginia’s university-based research activity encompasses a wide array of disciplines relevant to the wood products sector — industrial and manufacturing engineering, geological and earth sciences, and natural resources and conservation, among others. The Virginia Tech Center for Forest Products Business has been a national leader in research on and promotion of cross-laminated timber for over a decade. 

    Mountain Gateway Community College

    Mountain Gateway Community College, formerly Dabney S. Lancaster Community College, is one of only 24 colleges and universities across the country and the only one in the state of Virginia to offer a Society of American Foresters — accredited Associate of Applied Science degree in Forest Management Technology. 

    Mountain Gateway Community College

    Virginia Tech Department of Sustainable Biomaterials

    Virginia Tech Department of Sustainable Biomaterials and SVHEC’s R&D Center collaborated to produce and press cross-laminated timbers (CLT) using southern yellow poplar, a hardwood species abundant in the southeastern United States. Historically, hardwoods have been used very little in CLT production, but the SVHEC staff helped attract market awareness to CLT as suitable for a wide range of building applications. 

    Virginia Tech's Department of Forest Resources

    The Southern Virginia Higher Education Center

    The Southern Virginia Higher Education Center (SVHEC) has distinguished itself through cutting-edge research, including in the area of wood products. In 2020, marking its tenth anniversary, SVHEC’s R&D Center for Advanced Manufacturing & Energy Efficiency rebranded as ProductWorks@SVHEC. ProductWorks provides small and medium-size businesses with three core services: technology adoption, applied research, and short-production runs. 

    Meadows of Dan, Patrick County
    England Furniture, Lee County

    England Furniture, Lee County

    A Search for Talent Leads England Furniture

    England Furniture has maintained a commitment to employing the hardworking people of Appalachia since its founding. By exploring sites near its Tennessee headquarters, the company was able to access the new talent it needed for growth in Virginia while staying true to its target workforce. 

    Read the full case study

    Enviva Private Terminal, Chesapeake

    Enviva Private Terminal, Chesapeake

    An Attractive, Stable, and Predictable Operating Environment

    • Virginia has had a stable 6% corporate income tax rate, one of the lowest in the nation, since 1972. 
    • Sound economic policy and prudent financial management has earned Virginia a AA A credit rating since 1938 — longer than any other state. 
    • Virginia is the northernmost right-to-work state along the I-95 Corridor. 
    • Virginia has the 5th-lowest private-sector unionization rate in the country at 2.4%. 
    • In 2012, Virginia established an economic development incentive program created specifically to suit the unique aspects of forestry. Administered by VDACS, the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID) Fund is used by the Commonwealth in partnership with local governments to support new and expanding forestry businesses that are committed to sourcing wood products from Virginia landowners, loggers, and sawmills.

    Learn More About Virginia's Wood Products Industry

    View our brochure