// COMPANY DOSSIER
Kent Building Supplies
Atlantic Canada's largest home-improvement and building-supply retail chain, operating big-box and warehouse-format stores plus truss plants and distribution centres. It is a division of J.D. Irving, Limited.
📍 Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM Kent Building Supplies
“so poor Matthew was um you know we were selling Lumber for 15 to 20 percent under our cost”
“30 years ago it was about 75 percent were single-family homes”
“but in order to buy the business he had no money to speak of”
“I had always had a cap and originally it was just mentally but then I actually had it on paper”
“Lumber plywood OSB has always historically had Peaks and valleys”
“so Dad decided okay I'm gonna do this now and remember him telling me”
“we're big but we're not this big massive ship that takes forever to turn”
“I could show a newsletter where a lead time was 187 days a year and a half ago and now it's 17 days”
“dad said one time that his best business decision was joining Home Hardware in 1971”
// LESSONS FROM Kent Building Supplies
Put your family name on the business — the personal stake forces accountability and provides extra incentive to make it work.
Actively discourage family members from joining the business — only people who want to be there and are right for the business add value; obligation hires destroy culture.
University's most transferable lessons for business owners are time management and prioritisation, not domain knowledge — recognise this early to avoid over-investing in formal education.
The competitive moat for a building supplier is knowledgeable staff — contractors pay a trust premium for a person who can be handed a problem and never followed up on.
Shield customers from the scramble: the supplier's job is a smooth surface, not a transparent one — contractors need the answer 'yes', not the backstory of how it happened.
Lumber pricing is governed by too many independent variables to predict — spruce budworm, fuel, mill fires, hurricanes. Resist the urge to speculate; treat availability as job one and margin as secondary.
// SELECTED PROJECTS
Acquisition of Central Supplies (Nova Scotia)
CompletedAcquirer
Effective December 31, 2016. ~400 Central associates joined Kent. Atlantic Windows operations were excluded from the deal.
Riverview store relocation / new-build (1200 Findlay Blvd)
CompletedOwner / operator
Store at 1200 Findlay Blvd, Riverview NB (relocated from 535 Coverdale Rd). Official grand opening April 27, 2024, per Kent's official Facebook announcement (https://www.facebook.com/kentbuildingsupplies/posts/our-riverview-nb-store-is-celebrating-its-official-grand-opening-this-saturday-a/835388508633671/).
// KEY PEOPLE
// NOTABLE
Kent Building Supplies is a division of J.D. Irving, Limited, headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick.
SOURCE ▸Per J.D. Irving, Kent operates 48 retail locations across New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland & Labrador with a team of over 3,400 associates, describing itself as 'Atlantic Canada's leading chain of home improvement stores.'
SOURCE ▸