Green Forest Wood Products, LLC in Littlefork, MN
Lonesome Cottage Furniture Company (LCFC) is located on Hwy 371 in Pequot Lakes, MN. They offer a wide variety of furniture, cabinets, and home accessories from a rustic look for the cabin retreat to a more transitional feel for everyday living. Lonesome Cottage features handcrafted furniture from Cedar, Hickory, and Barnwood. http://lonesomecottage.com/.
LCFC supplies bedroom, dining, gathering room, bar room, office, bathroom, and hospitality furniture to wholesale customers. They are one of the national leaders in the rustic furnishings industry and offer quality, value and exceptional service to their customers, selling to 300+ furniture stores, hotels, lodges, interior designers and internet retailers throughout North America.
Since taking over Green Forest, Brandon has hired additional employees, improved the facilities manufacturing process, implemented accounting and inventory systems, winterized/heated the production facility, and built a breakroom with bathrooms. He also increased the employee wages, including a 401K plan, health benefits, paid time off, and holiday pay. Green Forest plans to start operating year-round supplying stable jobs and income for local workers. Shown below are the new breakroom and office space which are some of the improvements that have been made to the facility already.
Green Forest produces fencing, lumber, poles, posts, mulch, chips, shredded bark, and landscaping materials. They are a facility that is 100% sustainable, utilizing 100% of their raw materials. They are using the sawdust to heat the building (and selling to local businesses), and selling other byproducts to consumers for additional revenue. They are currently reconfiguring their facility to make a more lean manufacturing process that will help them reduce waste in production and labor. It will also allow them to create more product in a shorter amount of time. This is phase 1 of their plan to upgrade the facility. Phase 2 will include additional significant equipment upgrades to automate for higher volume output, a warehouse for storing goods, and a finishing building. http://www.greenforestinc.net
Brandon at Green Forest recently applied for the North Star Cooperative Revolving Loan Fund to help him complete phase 1 of the facility. Koochiching Economic Development Authority in conjunction with the Small Business Development Center helped Brandon and Green Forest identify resources, give recommendations, and give support from the application phase to the final decision. Brandon was awarded the loan on October 24, 2017.
