The World Over

For many companies that trade in recovered fiber, the export market is an important part of the business. For Traders International Corp., it is the business—period.

While many companies have only just started carving a place for themselves on the lucrative export scene, the Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.-based export brokerage firm has been thinking globally since its first transactions. While the company does some domestic shipping in the Southeast and Northeast, the bulk of its trading is done overseas. A family business started by company President Nini Krever’s father Danny in 1977, the company sells scrap paper, including old newspaper (ONP), corrugated, double line, bleach pulp subs and ground wood, all around the world from its home state.

Handing down a family business from one generation to the next is a tough transition to navigate in the best circumstances. However, the untimely passing of Krever’s father as she was poised to enter the business made the situation all the more challenging.

RISING TO THE CHALLENGE. Krever, a former French language teacher, got involved in the business in 1980 as her father was looking for someone to take over the company. "It was a family business and to keep it in the family, someone from the family had to go into it," Krever recalls. "And I volunteered. I had been teaching school and I thought it would be a great opportunity."

She had grown up around her father’s packing plants, so Krever was familiar with the basics of the scrap paper industry from the start. Once

"It was a challenge," she says. "I had thought I’d be learning from someone."

Tasked with keeping the business going, Krever says she had little choice but to immerse herself in the industry and learn all she could. "In hindsight it was scary, but at the time it was just something that had to be done."

In those early days, she did a week’s stint at a nearby paper plant, performing a variety of jobs, from working with the baler operator to working on the conveyor belt and the sorting line, to get a crash refresher course on the daily grind of paper recycling. "It was a great experience for me," Krever says, adding that it gave her a real hands-on understanding of how the paper industry works.

Firsthand knowledge of how the industry works from the plant to the pier is crucial in a small office like Traders, where multiple responsibilities fall on just a few people, meaning each employee has to know exactly what’s going on, according to Krever.

Seeing customers in person is just as important, she adds. Traveling to customers and suppliers has helped her build her own industry knowledge as well as strengthen the kind of business relationships that make for long-term clients. "You can’t just see your customer once," Krever says. "You have to see your customer regularly." The same goes for suppliers, she adds. "I travel to see my suppliers, to have an eye on the production of the paper that’s going out. It’s important to know what my customers are getting."

Keeping in close contact with customers and suppliers also helps Krever and Traders International stay on top of the many changes the scrap paper industry has undergone in the last several years.

THE WORLD AT LARGE. Since export is Traders International’s exclusive business, the increasingly global nature of the recovered paper industry is of chief concern to the company, according to Krever.

"There are some major issues facing our industry, and China is the biggest," she says. When she first started in the industry, Krever says that exports to Europe made up the greatest percentage of Traders International’s business. That’s no longer the case, she says. "We used to ship corrugated and double line to Italy and Spain, and that just doesn’t happen anymore, because they’re net exporters," she says. Like much of North America’s scrap paper, Europe’s tonnage is also heading to China.

China and its seemingly insatiable demand for the world’s scrap paper has been the No. 1 topic of conversation in the industry for the last couple of years. Krever says the central issue facing the industry on a global scale is where the supply is going to come from to meet such high demand, "if there is indeed going to be that capacity," she says. "It’s not just about price anymore," she adds.

Another unknown factor is global currency exchange. No one knows what the Chinese banking industry is going to do, Krever points out.

That level of uncertainty surrounding both China’s currency and where capacity will level off is also part of the problem, she says. "You can’t live in fear. You have to keep doing what you’re doing," she says.

While export destinations have shifted over the years, one thing that hasn’t changed is the importance of relationships in the paper industry, Krever says. Price may get people in the door, but relationships are what keep clients coming back.

Krever says success hinges on a number of things, including personal follow-up, attitude, integrity and accessibility. "It’s a combination of hard work and luck and timing," she says. "The business isn’t rocket science, but it’s clearly built on relationships, integrity, kindness and ethics. That’s how you’re going to get continued, long-term business."

The author is associate editor of Recycling Today and can be contacted at jgubeno@gie.net.