Treehugger Farms
The name Treehugger Farms signals a "very environmentally conscious company," says Jonathan Clark, who owns the business with his wife Donna. The broadly positioned enterprise sells firewood to dealers as well as wood stoves, gas stoves and bark mulch.
Treehugger Farms branches from a family business legacy that dates to the 1970s, when Jonathan's father, Greg Clark, launched a firewood business in the town of Mashpee on Cape Cod. The business was transplanted to New Hampshire in 1993 with a new name, and Jonathan bought the company from his father in 1998.
The business moved from Massachusetts because it became harder and harder to find firewood near the cape. Moreover, the cost of transporting logs to the Cape was becoming prohibitive. "We decided to move our operation to the wood." Jonathan says.
The Treehugger Farms Operation
The company operates on a three and one-half acre site that includes a building with a shop, showroom and office. From its new base, the company buys tree-length firewood in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts.
Treehugger Farms is equipped with two Multitek firewood processors. The company's inventory of 600 to 800 cords of split firewood stored on an asphalt pad to insure clean finished firewood and satisfied customers.
Logs are bought within a 100 mile radius in southern New Hampshire and northwest Massachusetts. Westmoreland, a town of about 1700, is about 25 miles north of the Massachusetts border, situated along Interstate 91 and the Connecticut River.
Treehugger Farms strives to recover as much sellable product as possible from the wood the company uses in the firewood business. They contract with another company that grinds his swadust and scrap wood, and then they sell the resulting mulch. The company turned its residuals into about 5000 cubic yards of mulch in 2001.
Treehugger buys mixed hardwoods for firewood. Although some customers prefer oak, the average load is mixed with oak, maple, ash, beech and birch. Firewood is sold wholesale to dealers on Cape Cod and in New Hampshire and Vermont.
One of the things Jonathan likes best about being in business is interacting with customers and others in the industry. When he has free hours he enjoys spending them with his family.
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Treehugger Farm uses a screening system to clean debris from the firewood, further insuring the cleanest wood possible.
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