End of the magic pudding: peak capacity and the impact on supply and demand
With Tim Woods of IndustryEdge, April 2022
The last two years have startled the housing market and timber supply chain into understanding there is no magic pudding of endless global timber supply, just waiting for demand to gobble it up.
In fact, the recent experience is that like waiting politely for the pudding to come around at a large family Christmas, those who fail to be in the right position or who wait meekly are likely to miss out altogether, and not merely to the older and bigger cousins at the other end of the table.
Perhaps the metaphor wears a little thin, but it is not the first time I have used it to describe the desperation over timber supply challenges over the last two years. That at least is how it feels right now.
The reason it feels this way is because – for many it is the first time – the relative scarcity of resource will now be an ever-present issue
We will explore that here, addressing the questions of demand, capacity limitations and the impact on the timber supply chain and the building process.
