​​About Sappi Southern Africa

Sappi was formed in South Africa in 1936 to serve South African consumers with locally produced paper.

We have a tradition of innovating and developing new products to meet local demand for newsprint, graphic papers, packaging papers used to protect our customers’ products (especially in the agricultural sector) and speciality papers used in convenience food, confectionery, cosmetic and luxury markets, and tissue paper for household, medical and industrial use in the Southern Africa region.

Our Verve brand is a significant player in the dissolving pulp (DP) market. DP is used worldwide by converters to create viscose fibre for fashionable clothing and textiles, acetate tow, pharmaceutical products as well as a wide range of consumer and household products. Almost all of the production of our mills in South Africa is exported.

Sappi Southern Africa operates five mills and has a combined production capacity of 86,000 m³ sawn timber, 660,000 tons of paper, 645,000 tons of paper pulp and over a million tons of dissolving pulp per annum. The pulp purchased by our European business is effectively hedged by Sappi Southern Africa being a net seller of pulp.

Our headquarters in Johannesburg (South Africa), manages the sub-divisions of Sappi Paper and Paper Packaging, Sappi Pulp and Sappi Forests. A number of regional functions like finance, human resources, sales and marketing, technical and engineering as well as board functions are also based there.

Find out more about the Sappi Southern Africa Executive Committee.

Sappi Forests own and lease 400,000 hectares (ha) of land, of which ~261,000 ha is planted and ~139,000 ha is unplanted natural areas.
Sappi Paper and Paper Packaging operates four mills and has a production capacity of 86,000 m³ sawn timber, 660,000 tons of paper and 645,000 tons of paper pulp per annum.
Sappi’s Research, Planning and Nurseries department enables the cost effective and sustainable supply of suitable forest resources to the business.

New developments in wood processing supports the move to a biobased economy that utilises materials that are renewable and biodegradable and that do not compete with food sources.

Sappi ReFibre is Sappi Southern Africa’s secondary fibre division and is responsible for the recycling of used paper and paper products.

Our dissolving pulp (DP) brand, Verve, creates renewable alternatives for raw material feedstock to textiles, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, and more.

Saiccor Mill produces elemental chlorine free (ECF) dissolving pulp (DP) mostly for the export market.

Sappi Trading operates a network for the sale and distribution of our products outside our core operating regions of North America, Europe and South Africa.

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Our global activity extends to three continents, selling millions of tons of high-quality products to customers all over the world.
Sappi Europe hat seinen Hauptsitz in Brüssel (Belgien) und ist der führende europäische Hersteller von gestrichenem Grafikpapier sowie Verpackungs- und Spezialpapieren.
Our roots can be traced back as far as 1854 to the S D Warren Company. Today, we continue the legacy of innovation and quality as a preeminent producer of printing and packaging papers, release paper and dissolving pulp.