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When Anders Ragnarsson founded Continental Biomass Industries in 1988, he was looking to solve his own wood waste recycling needs. Today, the company has hundreds of machines operating worldwide and meeting the high-volume demands of the construction, forestry and other sectors.

The Newton, N.H.-based company engineers and manufactures grinding, chipping and shredding machines used to turn logs and other wood debris into biofuel, mulch and other byproducts to be reused as energy sources. CBI also offers stationary construction and demolition waste recycling systems and refuse-derived fuel (RDF) production systems.

“We don’t produce machines at a price point; we design a machine to do a specific job and to provide more throughput at a lower cost per ton and less downtime than any other machine on the market,” General Manager Ed Donovan says. CBI offers standardized portable machines and custom stationary systems.

Customers know CBI’s machines for their durability, particularly when it comes to processing construction and demolition debris such as textiles, plastics and asphalt shingles. “The average machine cannot process construction and demolition debris because they are not built strong enough to withstand the introduction of common ungrindables such as rock or metal,” Donovan adds. 

The company’s construction and demolition waste processing equipment features heavy-duty screens and magnets that remove recyclable metal from debris.

Taking Initiative

CBI’s newest machine, the Shingle Pro XL 406, builds on the technologies used in the company’s established Grizzly Mill, Grind-All and Magnum Force machine lines. It offers users the capability to grind shingles down to the size required by most states for recycling and use as road asphalt, Donovan says.

Shingle Pro features include:

• A CAT C27, 1,050-horsepower with electric start engine
• A hog box design that allows the upper hog box and bonnet assembly to hydraulically lift, offering easier access to the rotor and grates underneath
• A heavy-duty reinforced housing with replaceable wear liners
• A rugged forged rotor with heavy-duty and easy-to-maintain hammers and tips
• An integrated water spray system that controls dust in the grinding chamber and doubles as a color injection system for processing other materials such as mulch
• A completely enclosed discharge conveyor for added dust control
• A unique engine cooling system that prevents radiator clogging.

Other new CBI products include an update to its Magnum Force grinder line – the 5400 – offering five different field-swappable rotors to accommodate changing materials and processing demands, Donovan says.

The new products are a part of the company’s strategy during the recession. “During the economic downturn we had a good run going and some strong sales, but we saw the wall was coming, so we took the time where we didn’t have much production and designed new machines that are smaller and have more appeal,” he adds. “We also invested in engineering and equipment design, so when the economy came around, we’d be able to hit the ground running.

“Where other companies were pulling in the horns and just trying to survive, we took the opportunity to invest and strengthen our product lines.”

`Fueling The Future’

Another major initiative launched during the recession is a sister company, Green Clean Heat (GCH). CBI manufactures heating systems that use the biofuel and other alternative energy sources produced by its machines.

“Our tagline is `Fuel The Future,’” Donovan stresses. “It’s always been our philosophy to find new energy sources to reduce our dependence on foreign oil … there’s a lot of material out there that has energy value that is not being utilized.”

GCH’s automated heating systems are designed for use in commercial, municipal and industrial buildings. The systems use wood fuels including high-quality premium chips and less expensive whole tree chips, as well as locally produced wood pellets.

The first system manufactured by Green Clean Heat was used to heat CBI’s 60,000-square-foot manufacturing facility during the winter of 2009-10. In 2010, GCH designed its own burner technology. The system was recognized by the state of New Hampshire with a $60,000 Green Launching Pad grant. 

A Founder’s Vision

Donovan says one of the company’s greatest strengths is the background and knowledge of its founder, Anders Ragnarsson, who remains closely involved with its day-to-day operations. “I don’t think you can go to our competitors with a problem or potential problem and speak with someone that has a better understanding of the industry than Anders,” he says.

Ragnarsson’s experience goes back to a tree and land-clearing business he started in 1983 shortly after emigrating from Sweden to the United States. He founded CBI in 1988 as a complement to his main business after searching for a machine able to meet his own needs by handling the volume and quality Anders needed to grind and process wood waste into a usable byproduct. His search included visiting Denmark, where he found a machine he thought could handle the amount of wood waste generated by his company, but eventually reached the conclusion that he needed to design a brand-new machine.

After a more than two-year process, Ragnarsson designed and built the CBI Grizzly Mill, his first grinding and processing unit, powered by a patented offset-helix rotor that uses kinetic energy.

While he initially used the machine solely for his own recycling needs, the Grizzly Mill eventually went into production, with the first machine selling during the early 1990s. “Anders knew people in the industry who had a need for similar machines and had them try his design, word of mouth got around, and the company grew from there,” Marketing Director Michele Morrill says. 

Supplier Relationships

CBI works closely with vendors to provide many of the key components in its machines. “We do our own fabrication, but if a machine needs to be designed with components beyond our manufacturing capabilities, we will design the components and have the manufacturing outsourced,” Donovan says. “We try to make our work with vendors a two-way street – we ask them to carry more stock and inventory, but we commit to purchasing that stock.”

More than 75 percent of the company’s suppliers and vendors have worked with CBI for its 23-year history, he adds. CBI’s key partners include Charles Machine Inc., TST Hydraulics and Flexxaire Fan Systems.