QUEBEC (News release) -- Kruger Products officially inaugurated its Sherbrooke Tissue Plant, which was commissioned in 2021, and also broke ground at its expansion project where another tissue plant will be built on a site adjacent to the Sherbrooke Plant by 2024. This second project, which represents further investments of $351.5 million, will deliver on the Company's vision to make Sherbrooke a major premium-quality tissue product manufacturing hub in North America, featuring Canada's most advanced and best-performing TAD tissue machine. In total, the Company will have invested nearly $1 billion in the Estrie Region since 2018.

The Sherbrooke Plant's inauguration and the ground breaking of the expansion project took place in the presence of Mr. Joseph Kruger II, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Kruger Inc.; François Legault, Premier of Québec; Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation; Geneviève Hébert, Member for Saint-François and Deputy Government Whip; Évelyne Beaudin, Mayor of Sherbrooke; Dino Bianco, Chief Executive Officer, Kruger Products L.P.; and Patrice Bégin, General Manager, Kruger Products Sherbrooke Plant.

Built in the Brompton Borough, along the Saint-François River, the Kruger Products Sherbrooke Plant required nearly one million person-hours of work and helped to create some 1,700 direct and indirect jobs during the construction phase, which ended on time and on budget in early 2021 despite the challenges of the pandemic.

The Sherbrooke Plant, which has 180 employees, has been performing well above expectations since it was commissioned last year. Furthermore, the Plant benefited from an additional $25-million investment to implement artificial intelligence (AI) functions that make it one of Canada's best-performing and most technologically advanced manufacturing facilities.