An emotional and one of the great comeback stories for the timber industry. By Chris Parker
True Blue Timber, part of Millari Group Australia, has grown and developed an expert operations team with close to 60 decades of timber experience between them, to create one of Australia’s leading timber wholesalers. Founded by owner and CEO, Ryan Yari, True Blue Timber first entered the market in Sydney establishing strong ties and relationships with hardware suppliers and construction project managers who were looking for quality products at exceptional prices with high customer service.
True Blue Timber quickly expanded to Victoria and in early 2025 the Australian based Millari Group made the strategic decision to purchase and reopen a sawmill located in Gisborne, New Zealand.
The announcement was welcome news across the local community, having wider implications for employment along with the regional economy. It also created timely news for the Australian timber industry, that access to New Zealand sourced, sustainable products with significantly shorter lead times than traditional offshore supply was on the horizon.
THE HISTORY OF JUKEN SAWMILL
For decades, the JUKEN sawmill was a cornerstone of Gisborne’s Tairāwhiti region. Operating for more than 30 years, the mill provided stable employment, sustained local forestry skills, and supported a supply chain that focused primarily on supplying products to the Japanese housing market.
When the mill closed in March 2024, the impact was immediate – jobs were lost, production ceased, and a highly skilled workforce was left without a site that had long defined the region’s forestry identity. This of course had wider implications across the regional economy.
ACQUISITION BY MILLARI GROUP AUSTRALIA
Millari Group, which already included Australian timber manufacturer and distributor True Blue Timber, marked the group’s significant expansion into New Zealand manufacturing with their first acquisition of the Juken sawmill located in Gisborne. By October of the same year, the operation reopened as Millari NZ, re-establishing 110 roles and recommencing large-scale timber production. The community was buzzing with excitement and positivity.
For the Millari Group, the acquisition represented a strategic move rather than a short-term expansion. True Blue Timber has grown significantly over recent years, operating facilities in NSW, in the suburb of Smithfield and in Victoria in the suburb of Clyde North. The New South Wales manufacturing footprint expanded from 4,000 square metres and is now 25,000 square metres.
MILLARI NEW ZEALAND – MANA
The Gisborne mill marked a deliberate strategic step upstream in the supply chain, bringing local NZ timber sourcing, sawmilling, and engineered wood production closer to the Australian retail market. The reopening also marked the beginning of a new relationship between the mill and the Gisborne community with the newly branded MANA timber. The MANA name is a term that carries deep cultural meaning in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Mana reflects authority, responsibility, integrity, and respect, and is not assumed lightly. The name has since been adopted for the mill’s timber and engineered wood products, signalling an expectation that the operation will act as a long-term steward of both people and resources.
RETURN OF FORMER MANAGEMENT AND EMPLOYEES
Former sawmill manager Shane Wilson returned to lead operations, alongside many other previous JUKEN employees. Retaining local capability was seen as critical to restarting production efficiently, whilst maintaining the technical knowledge built over decades at the site.
For Shane Wilson, returning to the Gisborne sawmill as General Manager Millari NZ, was less about starting something new, but rather about restoring something that already worked.
Having spent years at the site prior to its closure, Wilson understood both the technical complexity of the operation and the depth of experience held within the local workforce. When Millari NZ began planning the mill’s reopening, retaining that institutional knowledge became a priority rather than an afterthought.
From the outset, the decision was made to rehire locally, wherever possible. Many of the workers who returned had decades of experience operating the mill’s equipment, managing log flow, and maintaining production standards. That continuity allowed the operation to restart efficiently, while also providing a strong foundation for the next phase of development. “You can invest in machinery, but you can’t replace experience overnight,” Wilson says. “The people here know this mill and that matters when you’re trying to build something that’s going to last and pick up where it left off.”
Will Truscott, General Manager of Millari Group AUS/NZ notes that the mill’s existing knowledge base, combined with targeted upskilling and process refinement has positioned the site to respond to that demand without compromising quality. Millari Group continues to invest heavily in the upgrade of the LVL, Sawmill lines and machinery at Millari NZ. Will Truscott, General Manager of Millari Group AUS/NZ, says ‘Millari Group is half- way through investing in machinery at the New Zealand sawmill, where we will have greater technological innovation to help drive production and meet the timber demands our customers are seeking”.
Another area of increasing focus at the Gisborne site is plywood manufacturing. Plywood continues to account for a significant proportion of Australian timber imports, much of it sourced from offshore markets. As demand for structural and non-structural plywood has grown, so too has the need for closer, more reliable supply options that meet performance and certification requirements.
By combining sawmilling, LVL, and plywood production within a single site, Millari NZ is positioning the Gisborne mill as a stable supply base capable of supporting long-term growth in engineered timber across the Tasman.
SUSTAINABILITY
For Truscott, the emphasis remains firmly on sustainability across the Millari Group as a whole and not just environmental, but operational and human. “We expect this mill in New Zealand to still be running strongly in 20 or 30 years, and it will be because the right decisions were made early about people, process, and product,” he says.
As engineered wood products continue to grow its share of the Australian market, the Gisborne mill’s blend of experienced leadership, certified supply, and manufacturing capability is shaping up as one of its strongest assets.
Central to the Millari Group’s approach is a deliberate move away from vague sustainability claims toward demonstrable, verifiable practice. All products supplied from the Gisborne mill is supported by timber sourced from responsibly managed East Coast forests. The group has been explicit in its intent to avoid greenwashing, placing emphasis instead on transparency, traceability, and third-party certification.
The Gisborne Millari NZ sawmill site is currently progressing through its final FSC Certification.
In an industry facing rising scrutiny around material provenance and environmental performance, that clarity matters.
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AT MILARI NZ
The focus on process discipline has coincided with a growing emphasis on engineered wood products, particularly LVL, which has seen steady growth in demand across the Australian construction sector.
At Millari NZ, the development of MANA LVL represents a strategic shift toward higher-value, performance-driven products that require consistency, precision, and technical expertise at every stage of manufacture. Producing LVL at scale places additional demands on both workforce capability and operational control.
PRODUCT RANGE
The product range covers LVL, Plywood and Sawmill production for the Australian industry, including LVL E14, E13, E10, and LVL Formwork; structural and non-structural plywood panels and MGP and F-graded Radiata pine, and H2, H3 and H4 treated pine.
Logistics also form a key part of the strategy. Millari NZ will deliver products directly into Australia’s eastern seaboard, streamlining distribution and reducing exposure to the disruptions that have characterised global supply chains in recent years. For customers, the focus is on dependable scheduling and the ability to plan inventory with greater confidence.
STRENGTHENING SUPPLY ACROSS THE TASMAN
The reopening of the Gisborne sawmill comes at a critical moment for both the Australian and New Zealand timber industries. In recent years, the sector has faced mounting pressure from sawmill closures, tightening domestic log supply, and increasing exposure to climate-driven disruption.
In Australia, bushfires and forest closures have significantly constrained access to locally sourced timber, forcing greater reliance on imported engineered wood products and structural panels.
That reliance has brought its own challenges. Extended lead times, volatile freight costs, and questions around consistency and compliance with AS/NZS standards; all have complicated procurement for timber merchants, manufacturers, and builders alike.
For retailers operating in a market increasingly shaped by programme builds and fixed timelines, uncertainty in supply has become a material risk. In addition to this, the demand for engineered wood products is increasing with ABARES stating between 2020 and 2050 the demand for veneer/ plywood may double. (Source: ABARES, November 2024).
MILLARI GROUP CEO
CEO of Millari Group, Ryan Yari comments; “The disruption we’ve seen in global supply chains has highlighted the risks of relying too heavily on offshore imports. When you combine extended shipping times and lower product quality with rising demand for engineered wood products, the case for regional, standards-aligned manufacturing becomes very clear.”
Against this backdrop, the Millari Group’s acquisition and redevelopment of the Gisborne sawmill, represents more than an increase in capacity. It signals a shift toward closer, more reliable, standards-aligned supply at a time when demand for certified structural timber continues to grow.
FUTURE GROWTH AND POSITIONING
Australia’s national target of delivering 1.2 million new homes by 2029 has sharpened focus on the availability of sustainable, performance-based building materials. Engineered wood products – particularly LVL and plywood has become central to meeting those targets, not only for its strength-to- weight advantages but for its predictability and efficiency in modern construction.
Millari NZ is positioning itself directly within that demand curve.
With integrated sawmilling, LVL, and plywood operations, the Gisborne facility offers a trans-Tasman supply option that reduces reliance on long-haul imports while maintaining full compliance with Australian and New Zealand standards. For Australian retailers, this means shorter lead times, improved supply certainty, and a clearer line of sight from forest to finished product.
Millari Group has committed to a staged investment programme over the next three years aimed at significantly expanding production capacity. By 2027, the combined output of the sawmill, LVL, and plywood operations is targeted to increase from approximately 130,000 m3 to 200,000 m3 annually.
This includes planned increases across structural timber, LVL, and plywood, supported by investment in new machinery, automation, and process optimisation at the 35,000 m2 Gisborne facility.
That capacity growth underpins the continued development of the MANA product family, which includes MANA Beam, MANA Joist, MANA Form, MANA Edge, MANA Pine, and MANA Frame, with additional engineered and value-added products currently under development. Designed to meet the needs of Australian timber merchants and hardware retailers, the range reflects the industry’s ongoing shift toward engineered solutions that offer consistency, strength, and ease of use on site.
A NEW ERA HAS COMMENCED
As demand for engineered wood products continues to increase across Australia, Millari NZ’s combination of certified fibre, experienced workforce, expanded capacity, and proximity to market, positions the Gisborne operation as a long-term supply partner rather than a short-term solution.
For the Millari Group, the objective is straightforward: to deliver the products the industry needs, when it needs them, and to do so in a way that supports both regional forestry communities and the future of timber construction across the Tasman.
Ultimately, the reopening of the Gisborne sawmill represents more than the restart of a production facility. It reflects a considered, long-term investment in regional capability, Trans-Tasman supply resilience, and the people whose skills underpin the timber industry.
By reconnecting experienced leadership, certified fibre, and integrated manufacturing under the MANA name, Millari NZ is positioning the Gisborne operation as a dependable source of engineered timber for decades to come. In an environment defined by supply uncertainty, rising demand, and increasing scrutiny around sustainability, the mill’s revival stands as a practical example of how strategic manufacturing decisions can strengthen communities, shorten supply chains, and support the future of timber construction across Australia and New Zealand.
