Trinidad Tissues Ltd (TTL) did not grow overnight.
Country manager Bernard Hoeger said upon his entry to the country from Venezuela, in 2009, he began working for the Grand Bay Group, a Panama company that owned and operated a paper mill in Arima. The mill – Grand Bay Paper Products (GBP) had a lot of problems.
The manufacturing operations faced bankruptcy. The majority of employees were expatriates as the locals did not have the expertise to run the paper mill which was and still is the only one in the English-speaking Caribbean.
But Grand Bay Group was interested in another company – TTL – for which Hoeger and his team negotiated its acquisition.
At the time the companies were at separate locations. The GBP paper-manufacturing operations were at Arima and the TTL converting operations were at Trincity.
GBP workers weren’t accustomed to working with a lot of high-quality machinery. They had a combined marketing distribution, so they were not focused on the converting process, which was TTL's strength. A decision was made to merge the companies under Grand Bay TTL but based in Arima.
Part of that growth was establishing all the quality controls, developing the stock-keeping units, eliminating what was not needed.
“We had to do a quick turnaround, but in order to do that, the group decided that it was not enough to just purchase the tissue machinery, we needed to have brands established and converting processes as well. So, we decided to invest,” he said.
“That way, we will have the tissue machine placeholder and converting placeholder brands that have been in the market for years, which was a very wise choice.”
He explained that rejected toilet paper or paper towels are recycled to be made into useable products. Hoeger boasted that TTL is now a zero-waste company.
“If it's a reject it’s a reject, we cannot sell cheaper,” he said.
He added that even though this is the case, the rejected paper is processed again and repurposed into useable toilet paper or paper towel rolls.
Back in 2009, many of the workers at the factory didn’t even have work permits, he said.
Hoeger told Business Day that when he and his team from Panama took over, there were no local supervisors and no supervisors on the tissue side of the business.
[caption id="attachment_992207" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Paper rolls go through the production line at Grand Bay TTL factory in Arima. - Photo by Sureash Cholai[/caption]
“They lacked safety, a job safety analysis, they lacked a lot of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Act) follow-ups, no reporting structure, there were no guidelines regarding standards.”
Hoeger said there was a lot of work to be done on the company including developing the standard operating procedures. He said this included ensuring that the water used in the factory was clean and can be used to transform the recycled paper into sludge to create useable hygienic products.
The company now has a wor
