What is Latvijas Finieris?

We own over 10 000 hectares of land, mostly forest, and continue to increase this each year. We draw on the latest knowledge from forest scientists, with the aim of creating the highest quality and most productive forest stands possible.

We are also actively involved in knowledge development so that, together with other landowners, we can take the best possible care of the landscape and the environment and ensure the long-term availability of timber.

Understanding the needs of every forester, we offer professional services in the Latvian market for both current and long-term forestry issues.

We established the Latvijas Finieris Iekārtu Rūpnīca or Equipment Factory in 2000 to provide the Group with a centre of competence for high-quality and responsive technical services.

Today, Iekārtu Rūpnīca has developed into a large, competent mechanical engineering company that provides the servicing, repair and modernisation of production equipment at all the Group’s factories, as well as designs and manufactures new non-standard equipment and fully automated production lines not only for Latvijas Finieris but also for customers in various industries around the world.

The main activities of the Group’s experimental extraction factory Betulin Lab are the preparation of birch bark for European pharmaceutical and cosmetics companies, the production of birch bark extractive matter or triterpenes of biologically active substances, the extraction of betulin of different purity, and research into its use in various industries. Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and the food industry are just some of the areas where we see high potential for betulin’s excellent antibacterial, antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

The synthetic resin adhesive used in the production of plywood is produced at the Group’s Ķīmisko produktu rūpnīca or the Chemical Products Plant in Riga for consumption by Latvijas Finieris. The plywood coating widely used in our products – paper impregnated with synthetic resins – is also produced there. Almost ten years ago, we started to develop a unique resin production technology with the aim of significantly reducing the use of fossil raw materials by replacing them with bio-based lignin. We are now taking important steps in the further research and development of new production technologies within the international consortium project VIOBOND.

The Group’s birch plywood factories produce more than 900 000 m³ of birch logs per year. The technological process converts approximately 2/5 of this volume into the final product – plywood. The rest is made up of various by-products of the production process, which we recycle both in our own and in our partners’ factories, mainly focusing on long-life products that help to move away from fossil resources and serve as carbon sinks.

At our Zābaki Nursery, we grow trees, mainly birch seedlings, from carefully selected seed material, and for more than 25 years we have worked closely with the Latvian State Forest Research Institute Silava on research to improve birch growing practices