H1 2026 didn't quite hit the targets we set in January — quick look at where we are

End of May, halfway through 2026, so worth writing down where we are versus what we said we'd do in January.

The targets we set: 18% growth in total shipment volume YoY, two new mid-size buyers signed (one for craft sticks, one for tongue depressors), and the new packaging machine running by end of Q2.

Where we actually are:

Shipment volume — we're at about 6% growth YoY through end of May. So we're behind. Main reason is a single buyer in the US who took roughly 11% of our 2025 volume cut their orders to almost zero in March. They didn't fully explain — David got the email and we figured something changed on their side, maybe they switched to a different supplier, maybe their downstream customer cut them. Whatever it was, that 11% just disappeared. We've replaced about 4% with smaller orders from Eastern Europe (mostly Poland and Czech Republic) but the gap isn't fully closed.

New buyers — we got one. A Belgian distributor for craft sticks for school art programs. Small order to start (around 8000 USD trial), but they're seasonal — they buy big before September. The second one (the tongue depressor lead from Brazil) went quiet around April. We haven't given up on them, David follows up monthly.

Packaging machine — installed in March, running, but actually slower than the old one for the first six weeks. The vendor's tech came up twice from Qingdao to recalibrate. It's better now. We're getting about a 12% throughput improvement on standard cartons. Not as much as we'd hoped but its something.

Things we didn't plan for but are dealing with —

Birch price went up 8% in late March. Our supplier in Heilongjiang said it was a forestry quota thing. We absorbed it for the first month, then in May we adjusted our quotes to new customers (existing customers' standing prices stayed). So margins are a bit thinner.

Power costs went up about 5% in April after some grid changes. Small but it adds up over a month.

A small fire in the chip waste area in April. No injury, nothing damaged structurally, but the local safety bureau came around twice and we had to file paperwork for three weeks. Lesson learned — that area gets cleaned every shift now, not every other day.

So for the back half of the year — keep pushing on the Belgian buyer, see if we can get them to commit early. Try to find one more replacement for the US loss. Hold off on the third production line discussion till at least Q4 (see the other note on this). Keep going.

That's where we are.