What Kind of Wood Are Popsicle Sticks Made of?

What Kind of Wood Are Popsicle Sticks Made of?

Though it can vary from company to company, popsicle sticks are typically made of birchwood. Occasionally, plastic or another type of wood is used for ice cream sticks and holders, but birchwood remains popular for many reasons. It’s accessible and sustainable, and its unique properties are well-suited for use alongside food items.

Benefits of Birchwood

Because it’s smooth and durable and offers a neutral smell and taste, birchwood is a prime choice for food grade products:

• Smooth: Choosing the wrong wood for an ice cream stick could result in a consumer getting splinters, which would be a nightmare for both the consumer and the company that produced the dangerous treat. The smooth, even texture of birchwood is safe, and it feels better in your mouth as you eat a popsicle.
• Durable: Popsicle sticks made of birch are unlikely to break during normal usage; if they do, the properties of the wood allow for a cleaner, safer break. 
• Tasteless: Birch offers a neutral taste that doesn’t interfere with the ice cream or popsicle flavor. 
• Food Safe: Food manufacturers must use food grade materials to package their products, and that includes any wooden components. Birch features a fine grain, making it harder for food to get trapped in the wood. It’s used to make a number of products that are used with food, including cutting boards, rolling pins, skewers, corn dog sticks, drink stirrers, and more.
• Biodegradable: Whereas a plastic popsicle stick will stay nearly forever in a landfill, a wooden popsicle stick will decompose.

Food Safe Products at E.W. Hannas

At E.W. Hannas, we have decades of wood-based experience. We work with birchwood for a variety of our food safe products, and we take our responsibility to you seriously. We monitor the entire process involved in creating our ice cream and popsicle sticks, from harvesting the tree to enjoying a frozen treat. We offer extensive testing, backed by industry certifications, to ensure ecological responsibility, efficient production and quality control, and consumer safety. 

Contact E.W. Hannas for Your Popsicle Stick Needs

We offer wood assemblies ranging from popsicle sticks and other food safe products to crates, handles, dowels, advertising novelties, crafts, and custom wood products, but we don’t stop there. Our full line of services includes private labeling, supply chain management, and shipping and warehousing. 

With both third-party inspectors and internal auditors, we ensure our entire operation is held to the highest standards for safety and quality. We hold ISO 9001:2008, FSC, and C-TPAT certifications and belong to leading industry associations like the Global Food Safety Initiative, the National Association of Home Builders, the Wood Products Manufacturers Association, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, and others. Founded in 1918, E.W. Hannas is a fourth-generation company committed to ongoing growth, a renewable future, and complete client satisfaction.

Contact us for more information about our popsicle sticks, corn dog sticks, kitchenware, and other food-safe wooden products, or to get a quote for your project. 

A Guide to E.W. Hannas’s Custom Woodworking Capabilities

A Guide to E.W. Hannas’s Custom Woodworking Capabilities

Wood has been prized as a key construction material since ancient times. Today, it continues to find application in modern manufacturing operations as it is used to craft everything from industrial boxes and crates to children’s blocks. The process of making these parts and products is known as woodworking, and it can utilize a wide range of techniques and technologies to turn the raw material into a functional or decorative item. 

At E.W. Hannas, we are proud to have carried on the history and tradition of custom woodworking for over 100 years. In addition to maintaining a vast catalog of wood-based components and products that are found in hundreds of industries and applications across the globe, we continually invest in new machines, supply chains, and sustainability efforts to ensure we can continue to roll out new solutions for today’s and tomorrow’s customers. Below, we highlight our custom woodworking capabilities. 

Buttons, Plugs, & Biscuits

Biscuits, buttons, and plugs must be built to tight tolerances to ensure they fit in their designated holes. As a specialized supplier of high volumes of precision wood parts and products, we have what it takes to manufacture all of these components to your exact specifications and standards. We can make CQ or CCA-treated plugs up to 3 inches in diameter and any length for filling core samplings, composite wood biscuits for furniture assembly, and various buttons and plugs. 

Our button, plug, and biscuit product capabilities include: 

• Bungs
• Fluted dowel pins
• Joiner biscuits
• Screw hole buttons
• Spiral groove dowel pins
• Tree plugs

Wood Handles

Handles can serve both a functional and decorative purpose in woodworking applications. That’s why we put in the effort to make beautifully crafted wood handles that allow for a tight ergonomic grip and add value to a wooden piece. We can custom make handles in any shape or size for indoor or outdoor and houseware or hardware use. Various options for stains, varnishes, imprints, and hardware are available to ensure we can match your functional and aesthetic needs.

Our wood handle product capabilities include: 

• Fan handles
• Ferruled handles
• Finished handles
• Flat handles
• Pole handles
• Turned handles

Crates & Boxes

Boxes and crates can be used as a simple containers and/or a marketing opportunities depending on their design and construction. We offer a variety of assembly methods, hardware options, and customization capabilities to allow you to tailor your boxes and crates to have the look and feel you want. 

Our crate and box product capabilities include: 

• Candy Boxes
• Food Crates
• Ring Boxes
• Tea Boxes
• Wine Boxes
• Custom wood boxes and crates

Advertising Novelties

Customized novelties are a good way of getting your brand out there. By distributing wooden products instead of plastic ones, you can market your business without contributing to the growing plastic waste crisis. We can add your company logo or message to thousands of different wood products or ship out the products for you to imprint yourself.

Our advertising novelty product capabilities include: 

• Golf tees
• Imprinted wooden eggs
• Keyrings
• Pens
• Tokens and “nickels”
• Toys and trinkets

Wood Crafts

The wood crafts industry is a multi-billion dollar industry. Equipped with carefully crafted tooling and standards, we can make the high-quality, competitively priced products and packaging you need to succeed in this industry. 

Our wood craft product capabilities include: 

• Balls and blocks
• Beer flights
• Cutting boards
• Display racks
• Miniatures
• Picture frames
• Shapes
• Slats
• Split handles for grills
• Tool handles
• Wedges

Flag Parts

E.W. Hannas has supplied wood flag parts to the largest United States flag manufacturers since the 1940s. We have a dedicated team of hundreds of workers who focus on providing quality flag components reliably and quickly. 

Our flag part and product capabilities include: 

• Bases
• Brackets
• Eyelets and grommets
• Finials
• Flag poles
• Flag sticks
• Two-piece flag poles
• Other flag accessories

Food-Safe Products

Food-related products are subject to strict requirements and restrictions that ensure the food that comes into contact with them continues to be safe for consumption. All food-related products produced at E.W. Hannas meet and/or exceed these specifications and standards. We aim to comply with the highest level of direct food contact suitability that wood parts and products can offer. 

Our food-safe product capabilities include:

• Corn dog sticks
• Drink stirrers
• Ice cream sticks
• Kitchenware
• Ornamental picks
• Skewers

Dowels & Dowel Pins

Dowels and dowel pins play a critical role in many pieces of electronics, furniture, and machinery. By joining two separate pieces of material, they help hold an assembly together. If need, they can be made strong enough to withstand use in heavy-duty applications. 

We produce dowels and dowel pins at the highest standard in the world. We can make them in a range of sizes and with various tips to suit different applications. This quality and customizability, combined with our competitive pricing, make us a leader in this product market. 

Our dowel and dowel pin product capabilities include: 

• Color-coded dowels
• Craft dowels
• End bored dowels
• Engraved or imprinted dowels
• Pointed dowels
• Slotted dowels
• Stained and finished dowels
• Tenoned dowels
• Apple sticks
• Cosmetics & healthcare components (cotton tip applicator, cuticle sticks, make-up sticks)
• Ladder rungs
• Marshmallow sticks
• Mop handles
• Pennant sticks
• Poles
• Skewers
• Stakes (sod stakes, plant stakes)

Custom Wood Products

The above product list is not all-inclusive. The woodworking experts at E.W. Hannas can accommodate requests for a broad selection of other standard and custom wood products. We can take your product concept from initial design to prototyping to market distribution, all while ensuring it is customized to be unique to your company. 

Our custom wood product capabilities include: 

• Custom veneer and finishing options (including furniture-grade)
• Custom moldings beginning from a CAD drawing or product sample
• Custom turning with manual and automatic lathes
• Custom boxes with the ideal dimensions and appearance for your brand

Contact E.W. Hannas for Your Custom Woodworking Needs Today

Looking for a partner for your custom woodworking project? E.W. Hannas is here to help! Companies have turned to us for their woodworking needs since 1918 when we set up shop in Manhattan. We now boast the strongest consortium of wood manufacturing plants in the world, which enables us to deliver high-quality wood parts and products for a diverse range of industries and applications.

Most of our products are available in both standard and custom sizes, with further customizations available depending on the item. We also offer container and pallet rates to keep prices affordable and blanket orders for customers requiring a consistent supply. Whatever your project, we are dedicated to making woodwork for you.

Contact us today to learn more about our product capabilities or discuss your project specifications with one of our team members.