Nova Scotia’s first-ever “seed-to-sale” cannabis micro-producer is hitting shelves at retail locations in November.

Jazz Cabbage, a micro cultivator and processor located in Mount Uniacke, expects their first batch of Grandpa’s Stash to be available in 13 of the province’s 33 NSLC cannabis stores in November, packaged in 3.5 gram recyclable tins.  

Sam Harrison, one of the five founders behind the company, says the company is taking environmental sustainability in the cannabis industry very seriously, designing their own high-efficiency, heat-capturing LEDs and recovering about 95% of the water they use, and then offsetting their final energy use through a third-party company. 

“We know that the cannabis industry as a whole is a large energy consumer,” says Harrison. “So a big part of what we want to do is reduce our environmental impact and the resources we consume. So we’ve done what we can on the technology part. And we’ve also partnered with Bullfrog Power to offset our energy usage. We have a good amount of legacy growing experience on our team. And we’re passionate about the product itself, as well as developing new processes and technologies, like our LEDs.”

“Our custom lights that we designed and manufactured in-house capture around 70% of their heat production, allowing us to use it and move it to other areas of the facility that need heat, or directly dissipate it outside the facility,” he continues. “And our water and condensate recovery system is about 95% efficient, so at most only an additional 100 litres of water gets added to our facility in a day from our on-site water system. We divert about 1,900 litres from waste in a day.”

Harrison says Jazz Cabbage selected their facility location with eyes on future expansion, but at the moment are pleased to be operating as a micro cultivator and processor. Being the first micro producer in Nova Scotia to get their sales licence gives them a chance to prove out their methods and model before expanding into other provinces and potentially increasing their capacity. 

“Our building is pretty perfect for micro cultivation. It’s around 6,000 square feet, which gives us room for the canopy, plus processing and a little more. And we’re located on a couple of acres of land here so there is room for additional buildings if we want.”

Although one of only about a dozen micros with some form of sales licence—which allows a producer to sell directly into a provincial distributor or retailer—Harrison says the process was fairly straightforward. After getting their micro cultivation and processing licence in February, they applied for their sales amendment for dried/fresh cannabis in July and received it in September 2021.  

Because they had been engaging with the Nova Scotia government and the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation (NSLC) since their team first started Jazz Cabbage, they were able to quickly move from production to sales. Being a local Nova Scotia business helped, too, he says. 

“(The sales licence) wasn’t too bad. We knew right from the start that we wanted to go for the full seed-to-sale model. So it’s something we knew we had to do and luckily the application process for that wasn’t too bad and there is some good guidance from Health Canada out there now in terms of what you need to apply and the process of getting that submitted.” 

“We’ve also been in contact with the NSLC pretty much since the inception of our business with regards to what they need from us, and what their plans have been. We have a good relationship with them. They’re excited to have our product on shelves and we are too.”

“We sort of think like ‘farm to fork’ chefs who are just laser-focused on every aspect of the dishes they create. They would never put a dish in front of you that they couldn’t be proud of. We feel that way about our cannabis products.”