A.W. Jenkinson Forest Products’ Head Office is located at Clifton, near Penrith in Cumbria. The flagship site was acquired in 1994 and has been developed to process a broad spectrum of A.W. Jenkinson’s products.
Initially centred on the processing and supply of animal bedding, the site has expanded to include both hardwood and softwood chip production for walkways, coloured wood chips and processed bark for use as a mulch, compost or as an organic soil improver.
The large volumes of consistently high quality products produced at the site are the result of heavy investment in both personnel and equipment and a well established supply chain infrastructure.
The huge Clifton site is capable of processing around half a million tonnes of wood every year. This massive throughput is comprised of approximately 250,000 tonnes of bark from sawmills and forestry sources.
The bark volume is matched with a similar amount of hardwood and softwood drawn from milling residues, raw low grade roundwood, forestry residues and arboriculture.
Initial processing and chipping of material is carried out by a state of the art Chipping and Screening line. This high output system can handle a wide variety of input materials ranging from small roundwood to off cuts, butt reducers and peelings.
The sorted, chipped, flaked or fibre material can then be packed for use as wood chip for pathways, wood fibre and flake for animal bedding or, in the case of bark, may be composted for use as mulch or soil improver.
Extensive use is made of an automated packing line which bags large volumes of chip, mulch and peat free compost on behalf of some of the UK’s leading names in gardening, DIY and retail.
A significant volume of chips produced are coloured onsite using a state-of-the-art colour mixer. The high quality coloured hardwood or softwood chips produced are popular for decorative gardening purposes in domestic applications.