Niagara Kennington Site

Company
history

Generations
of Timber

The company was originally established in the small Southland country settlement of Niagara and has been wholly owned by the Richardson family since 1954. It graduated from three sawmills to its present site at Kennington on the outskirts of Invercargill.

Providing quality timber is our lifeblood and the staff at Niagara have expertise, experience and a belief that our products, like the tall forest, will stand the test of time. In 2005, Niagara purchased the Ashburton-based remanufacturing operation of Pacific Timber (NZ) Ltd - Niagara. Established in 1992, Niagara spent its first 15 years located in Dobson Street, Ashburton and has continued to expand on the new Alford Forest Road site. The Ashburton site serves as a central hub for distributing our high-quality range of timber products.

In 2018, Niagara completed the construction of a new high-tech remanufacturing plant in Kennington, Invercargill. Niagara continued expanding and in 2018 purchased an additional manufacturing plant located in the Waikato district: Jointwood Products. With roots that date back to 1910, Jointwood is a well-established business that is widely recognised as a manufacturer of quality finger jointed pine products.

In 2020, Niagara purchased the Craigpine sawmill business located in Winton. Craigpine has a proud history of sawmilling in New Zealand, and was originally founded in 1923 as Port Craig Timber. Back in the 1920’s, NZ native species were the backbone of the NZ sawmilling Industry. Being located on the South West coast of Southland, Port Craig was perfectly positioned to take advantage of a plentiful supply of key species such as Rimu and Beech.