Birch Plywood Direct From the Mill

October 3, 2026

We sell birch plywood by the pack, the truck and the container, straight from the Stiga RM mill in Kuldiga, Latvia. No importer in the middle, no distributor markup, and no guessing about what is in the core.

Six grades, three thicknesses from the standard list, 6.5 to 40 mm on request. You can mix grades and thicknesses in one load. Minimum order is half a truck.

If that is what you need, send us your square metres and your delivery address and you will have a pack count and a price. The rest of this page is for deciding what to ask for.

What you get that an importer cannot sell you

All birch, confirmed. Every ply is birch, 1.5 mm, cross bonded. Not birch faces over a poplar core, which is the most common substitution in this market and the hardest to spot on a pallet. Look at a cut edge on one of our sheets and you will see uniform plies with no voids.

A published thickness tolerance. Our 18 mm runs 17.1 to 18.7 mm. We print that because it is what the mill declares. Ask the next three suppliers who quote you for their tolerance and see how many can tell you. If you are machining housings or running a CNC programme, that number decides whether the job fits.

The certification stack. CE to EN 13986 and UKCA. PEFC chain of custody, FSC Mix on request. E1 to EN 717-1. CARB Phase 2 and EPA TSCA Title VI, without which a sheet cannot lawfully enter the US market. IKEA IOS-MAT-0181. F4 for Japan on the uncoated grades. We send the certificates with the quotation.

Mixed loads. Two packs of 18 mm BB/CP, four of 21 mm CP/CP and two of film faced on the same truck. Confirmed at quotation.

Direct factory scheduling. The mill produces to order. You get a production slot, not a place in a merchant's queue behind everyone else.

The six grades

Grades describe the faces, not the strength. A CP sheet carries what a BB sheet carries, because the mill fills the defects that would weaken it. You are buying appearance.

Grade	Use it for
BB/BB	both faces visible, painted or lacquered	clean birch both sides
BB/CP	one face visible, back hidden	the usual furniture choice
CP/CP	structural and covered work	full strength, no cosmetic premium
C/C	crates, pallets, site protection	cheapest per sheet
F/F	formwork, trailer linings	phenolic film, sealed edges, EN 636-3S
F/W	trailer floors, ramps, decks	anti slip mesh face

Paying for BB on a panel nobody will see is waste. Specifying C/C where the face shows is a mistake you will live with. The grades guide has the defect limits for each one, which is what you should be comparing rather than the letters.

Thickness

15, 18 and 21 mm ship from the standard list. Anything from 6.5 to 40 mm is a quotation away, 6.5 to 35 mm on the film faced grades.

An 18 mm sheet is roughly 12 plies and weighs 38 kg. A 21 mm sheet weighs 45 kg, which is a two person lift. Pack sizes drop as thickness rises because the mill packs to volume, not sheet count: 50 sheets at 15 mm, 40 at 18 mm, 35 at 21 mm, around 2.3 cubic metres either way.

Before you commit a CNC programme, ask us for a sample from the run. The thickness guide explains why.

What it costs

Prices sit on the product pages, in your currency, for your market. We do not print a table here because the number changes with your country and a wrong number in your budget helps nobody.

How the material prices works the same way wherever you buy it.

Per cubic metre, thickness barely matters. A 21 mm sheet costs more than a 15 mm sheet because it contains more wood, not because it is a dearer product. So when you compare quotes, convert to cubic metres or you will compare nothing.

The gap between our cheapest and dearest sanded grade is about 15%. Dropping a grade to save money saves very little.

Film costs almost nothing. F/F prices level with a comparable sanded grade. For formwork or anything that meets water, there is no reason to buy uncoated.

The price guide shows the conversion maths and what every quote depends on.

Working out your load

Divide your square metres by 3.125 to get sheets. Divide by the pack size to get packs. Round up, because mills ship whole packs.

Then two numbers that catch people out. A full truck of birch plywood runs out of weight before it runs out of space: you reach 24 tonnes at about 15 packs. And a 40 ft container carries roughly 15% more than a 20 ft, not twice as much, because the 40 ft hits its payload while the 20 ft hits its volume. Budget export freight on the assumption that bigger means double and you will be wrong by a lot.

The load guide has sheet counts and square metres for half truck, full truck, 20 ft and 40 ft at each thickness.

Where it goes

Furniture and cabinetmaking take BB/BB and BB/CP at 15 and 18 mm. Birch holds screws where lighter panels strip, and the striped edge can be left exposed instead of banded.

Construction takes CP/CP for anything covered and F/F for formwork. Interiors take BB/BB or BB/CP, painted or clear lacquered. Transport takes F/W for floors and ramps.

For rooms that need acoustic performance rather than a surface, plywood is the wrong material and our wood wool panels are the right one.

The applications guide matches grade and thickness to each job.

How we compare

Against softwood plywood we cost more and hold fasteners better. For sheathing and hidden structural work, softwood does the job and we do not stock it.

Against poplar cored sheets sold as birch, we are a different material at a different price. Check the cut edge.

Against Finnish birch, the species and construction are the same. What differs is that we will mix a load, quote a non standard thickness, and give you a production slot without a distributor in between.

The comparison goes through each with the declarations behind it.

Before you buy from anyone

Four questions. We answer all four in writing with every quotation.

Is every ply birch, or are the faces birch over something cheaper?
What is the declared thickness tolerance?
Which bonding class to EN 314, and is it on a Declaration of Performance?
CARB Phase 2 and TSCA Title VI, yes or no?

A supplier who cannot answer the second or fourth question in writing is not selling you what you think you are buying.

Get a price

Tell us the grade, thickness, square metres and delivery address. You get a pack count, a price and the certificates. Volumes above half a truck price lower, and we ship container loads worldwide.

Production runs up to 3 weeks depending on season, plus transit. There is no stock, so a job starting next week is a merchant's job and we will say so.

Request a quote or browse the birch plywood range.