Interesting letter, and one with which I share a lot of opinion and sentiment, but also not entirely accurate. We unloaded a truckload of New England pellets on Monday. Yea, we sold it in 3 hours, but it's not JUST the big boxes getting inventory.
My $0.02 worth: Well... I live here. LaValley's W. Leb has refused to buy anything but NE for years. I've asked them directly why. They say "Because they're the best pellet on the market", lol. I mean - really? Completely out of touch with reality. The letter says they trusted NE and didn't line up alternate suppliers - more fool them. There are a lot of great pellets they could have dropped in here from Ontario, PA. - we're at the intersection of I-91 and I-89 fer crissake . . blah blah. They don't seem to have been paying much attention to anything. Meanwhile, the local HD has hundreds of tons in the lot of Chows, FSUs, and Blazers at $219. C'mon - everyone has to compete. Just sayin'.
The whole pellet stove industry and pellet supply market has been interesting reading. I've learned a lot. Until I found FHC, I'd never even thought about burning anything but firewood. We have pellet makers in Strong & Corinth Maine that supply jobs... hoping their pellets are at least good enough to keep supplying... jobs... ... they can be few and far between around here.
even those brands, if you don't happen to live in the wonderful State of Maine, are hard to come by. I'm for anyone who provides jobs to the local populace, so hope they are doing well. Sadly, some of us saw this coming, but, well, for some reason, others didn't (I alluded to this back in August, but, well, hey...can lead a horse to water, but rather than drink, they just accuse you of creating a panic)..... Maybe it might help to communicate what we actually do.....we don't take orders for pellets unless we HAVE THEM ON THE GROUND! This isn't the first time a company hasn't come through for various and sundry reasons, and it likely will not be the last. I feel for the folks who thought they were going to get pellets by placing their order, only to be let down, at most likely the worst time of the year.....what might they do? Burn wood/oil/gas, use electricity maybe (good thing energy prices are low for the moment)....or, find pellets elsewhere...if they can. 40,000 bags, or 800 tons...not all that much, but it still hurts the local folks. Maybe they can go to the Big Box? I'm sure the BB'es wont take advantage of their somewhat unique situation, right? Lavalley probably should have diversified somewhat as well, as mentioned above, and not placed all their eggs in the one basket. Hopefully other retailers, or Lavalley even, is working on other pellet options for their loyal customers in the short term, but don't expect that price to be as low as whatever they were offering those NEWP's at..........(and this is why I don't think they are offering any at all....at today's prices, offering the same NEWP earlier price, they'd lose their shirts....)
Strong makes Maine Choice and Geneva. I haven't burned the Geneva but I haven't had any luck with the Maine Choice. I've only tried Corinth once, but the ash was ridiculous. I'll stick with the MWP's out of Athens. It's the best pellet made in Maine as far as I'm concerned.
