It's simply a matter of economics. With good hardwood pellets available in their own back yard the retail prices are less than that of NE for the most part. Compare the price of pellets in PA to that of MA/CT. The cost to get them to MA just isn't that much more when moving freight as far as most of the good softwood pellets do….Us, LaCrete, Northern, Pinnacle etc all fall into the same boat and we have to make some margin on them or why do the business. If PA would pay more (as a whole, not just one or two customers) then they might see more (or even one good brand) softwoods there. The exception might be Vermonts, but then they can sell all they make within 100 miles of their plant in VT, so why go further out if you don't have to.
Same for the mid west. There are so many brands locally, that it's just not profitable to bring in a pellet when their selling prices are where they are at. Maybe not the answer people like to hear, but it is what it is. If we or any other manufacture can't make a margin, we won't go there. Don't blame us, blame the railroads…..they are the ones that set the rates, which can get rather spendy very quickly. Trucking over about 150 miles from a mill will usually prove way to costly to be able to compete.
The margins aren't large in this business, so we go where we can sell the most product the easiest and NE has proven to be a great market for our product, but it has taken about 5 years to educate the public that softwoods aren't crap and get them to pay the money. The midwest I doubt will ever get there as NE has….I hope I'm wrong, but that is what I think.