Life Cycle Botanics is a cannabis nursery operating on BC’s Vancouver Island getting ready to begin supplying new genetics to commercial cultivators, especially those in BC.
Located about twenty minutes north of Nanaimo, Life Cycle Botanics Nursery is run by Kim and Mark Qvist, who also run a small micro cultivation site in Langley, BC in the Lower Mainland, Covert Valley Reserve.
When Covert Valley was licensed in 2020, Mark says they quickly learned that nurseries were a missing element that was needed in the industry, especially for micro cultivators with a limited amount of space to grow in.
“As a micro facility, we have built relationships with purchasers, processors and the provinces,” explains Qvist. “As a nursery this allows us to have a better understanding of what our cultivation clients need to get their products to market.”
Mark & Kim Qvist
Life Cycle Botanics currently has about 25 different varieties ready for sale in the coming weeks, many of which they have also been able to grow out in their own micro cultivation facility, another advantage, says Qvist.
“We have an in-house research and development program, advanced pest management methods and our own in-house laboratory to test for pathogens,” he continues. “We run our strains from plantlet to finished flower (utilizing their micro cultivation licence), which allows us to document all the characteristics of the genetic and its optimal environmental conditions. Our grower’s notes come from the experience of growing our own genetics.”
The licensing process took them about four months from submission of their evidence package to when the nursery was licensed in October of last year. Qvist attributes the relatively short timeline to their past experience with licensing.
“It was much faster this time around, we had all our security clearances already out of the way and knew what they would be looking for in terms of our facility. So that helped a lot, it was really quite fast.”
Qvist says Life Cycle can ship clones to any cultivators anywhere in Canada but is especially looking to develop relationships with growers in BC and Alberta, ensuring any shipments are not at the mercy of Canada’s cold winters and hot summers.
“We are happy to work with anyone, obviously, but we’re in BC and we’re BC growers and, especially because we’re located on the island, we think we can work well with other local growers to be their genetic supplier so they can just focus on growing good BC bud.”
“We have an extensive genetic bank offering the classic favourites as well as never seen before cultivars. We have a continuous rotation system that will always allow us to maintain a fresh strain list, which in turn helps limit over saturating the market.”
“The micro works great for doing R&D on our genetics, too. We have the flower rooms there so all the strains we bring in we can grow them out and get our COAs and helps us get all our data for our genetics.”
“By passing along the responsibility of cloning to Life Cycle Botanics, cultivators receive consistent access to unique genetics and healthy clones while allowing them to generate the greatest return per square foot.”
Uniik Organica is a micro processor in Quebec with a line of body care products being launched in provinces in 2022.
First licensed in August 2021, the small company has been working on building up a supply of product and developing relationships with distributors and provinces, all while securing their own sales licence at the same time. The sales licence arrived in late November 2021.
Products will first arrive in Yukon, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba in January 2022.
Denise Penczak, the company’s owner, started out making a magnesium cream for muscle pain to manage issues related to cancer. In addition to a cannabis-infused personal lubricant and magnesium cream, Uniik Organica has a line of other non-infused body care products like salves, face creams, and deodorant.
She’s also currently working with a researcher at UBC on a cannabis-based female suppository that she hopes will be available in some provinces by spring 2022.
The process has been a long one, says Penczak, but one with a pay-off.
“It doesn’t come easy, you have to work really hard. And when you’re at the point of giving up and feeling like you’re not really getting ahead, that’s when things start to fall into place.”
“You have to be prepared to put the time in, to have a good support team and really rely on them. Lean on the people you have on your team and distribute the work and keep pushing through. It will happen.”
Although Uniik has its own sales licence, Penczak explains they will still be working with a third-party processor/distributor who already has connections with the provinces, at least for the time being.
But for provinces that have their own warehouse, Uniik can still do all the packaging and labelling at their warehouse and ship it out themselves without ever physically sending it to their processing partner.
The micro size is also a good fit for a topicals company, she says, and there are no plans to expand their footprint. Micro processors are limited to bringing in no more than 600kg of dried cannabis per year (or its equivalent). Uniik buys cannabis isolate to add to her products, which contain THC and/or CBD.
“For now we’re just producing and deciding where to go next. We want to see how these products sell and then go from there.”
Kootenay-based Sweetgrass Cannabis recently became the first micro cannabis cultivator in BC to get a sales licence. They hope to have products on shelves in BC very soon, followed by Ontario and several other provinces. The path of getting to this significant milestone has been decades in the making.
Mathieu “Jimmy” Page and Tim Deighton both moved to the Kootenays about 20 years ago before meeting through a common love of cannabis. The two operated their own medical cannabis production facilities under their ACMPR licenses, before eventually retrofitting them to house two indoor micro cultivation facilities, side-by-side on adjacent 10-acre plots of land located about 20 minutes south of Nelson.
The first Sweetgrass cultivation licence (obtained in May 2020) was a long process, says Deighton, but their second micro facility only took a few months. Both were costly retrofits, and the two partners had to raise significant funding on their own, as well as acquire loans through the local Community Futures groups that have helped them create several new jobs in the region.
By January 2021, the Sweetgrass team was ready to send in the application for the sales amendment for dried cannabis flower. The process took nearly 11 months, which they say was in part due to long delays in communications from Health Canada’s licensing division.
They finally got the sales licence in November 2021 which now gives the company more control over its product. Despite those delays, Deighton says he’s optimistic about the next steps and being able to now control more of their own sales and build their brand.
“It was a learning curve and took a bit longer than expected due to some issues with coordinating lab results, but I think it will be easier the next time around. Our first micro (site) took over a year but our second was only two months so I think once you know how to do it, the next time around will be easier.”
In order to get products to market before they had their own sales licence, Sweetgrass was wholesaling to a few other cannabis producers who were able to get their products in a handful of provinces, mostly in the Maritimes.
While this approach worked and they may still work with one of the processors to handle sales in eastern Canada, they are both eager to be able to really build their own brand by selling it all themselves.
“It’s been good, the B2B, but we’re definitely ready to take on more ourselves with the sales amendment,” says Deighton.
Consumers in BC and Ontario should be able to find their 3.5-gram offerings of Mint Chocolate Chip and Crunch Berries in the coming weeks, and they hope to have pre-rolls available in some provinces in early 2022.
Page says he’s happy to see more businesses like theirs being able to contribute to the local Kootenay economy which has relied on the cannabis industry for a long time.
“Being some of the first here in the Kootenays, I think a lot of people are going to follow our path and jump on board so we can have a little hub here (to) help the local economy,” he says. “The Kootenays are already very well known in the legacy market so we just have to create that in the legal market.”
Page also operates a restaurant in Nelson, and he says he sees a lot of similarities to the level of regulations he deals with in both the restaurant world and the cannabis world.
“I see a lot of positives for where we will be in about ten years,” he explains. “It hasn’t been easy, but if you compare it to other things like running a restaurant or having a liquor licence, this is just the nature of things.”
“But a healthier market would be one with more opportunities for craft growers and more assistance from the government to help transition and to….make sure consumers can buy our product.”
Deighton shares the cautious optimism.
“I’m pretty hopeful that it will come around but it has a long way to go. We really need to support more people, especially in the Kootenays, coming onto the micro scene to support community employment.”
With their recently-issued processing licence, Metro Green Logistics—already the largest logistics service provider to the Cannabis market—is one step closer to the full-service supply chain solution they see the market needs.
Combining decades of experience in warehousing and order fulfillment, transportation solutions, and contract packaging, Metro Supply Chain Group has taken a more unique approach to the cannabis industry in Canada.
Rather than focusing on cannabis production, the company entered the legal space several years ago doing what they do best; providing warehousing, packaging, and delivery solutions for several licensed producers and two provinces.
Now the company is one step closer to providing a full suite of services with their new processing licence from Health Canada—operating as a dedicated division solely focused on the needs of the Cannabis market Metro Green Logistics—that will allow them to store finished, sealed and tax stamped cases of cannabis from any Licensed Producer other producers at their Mississauga facility, as well as distribute that product to provinces across the country.
In 2017 Metro Supply Chain established Metro Green Logistics, which has been offering a variety of solutions ranging from warehousing and eCommerce fulfillment for the SQDC in Quebec and the NSLC in Nova Scotia, as well as primary and secondary packaging on-site for licensed producers.
With their new processing licence, they can store packaged goods in the new Mississauga facility and then distribute them to various provinces. The company says the service is being offered on a flexible, transactional, shared resources basis which is very beneficial to Licensed Producers as they can preserve precious capital for brand development, manufacturing or inventory investments , freeing up valuable space in their own facilities for production rather than storage.
“Given the shortage of Health Canada-approved warehousing and distribution space in Canada available to licensed producers, Metro Green secured its own Health Canada Standard Processing License on November 26, 2021, which allows us to store and distribute sealed, tax stamped recreational cannabis for all licensed producers destined to all provincial wholesalers and retailers,” explains Richard Cranwill, Vice President of Metro Green.
“Our Mississauga site is temperature-controlled, fully racked and WMS enabled, and we will be commencing operations as of January 4, 2022, for a broad range of licensed producers.”
For both Nova Scotia and Quebec, Metro Green manages a warehouse for the province, doing both order fulfillment for stores, as well as eCommerce fulfillment for each province’s online sales. While Nova Scotia takes ownership of all product that comes through the warehouse that is managed by Metro Green, Quebec uses a system where producers maintain ownership of the product that is then coordinated and “cross-docked” by Metro Green before making final delivery to the provincial retail stores.
These relationships, operating now for more than three years, have given the Metro Green team unique insight into some of the supply chain challenges, and has positioned them well to run their own private warehouse, says Cranwill.
Although initially many producers, especially larger ones, tried to integrate as many aspects of the supply chain as possible under their own banner, increasingly they are learning to outsource aspects of the production process.
“The next natural step for us was to help our customers with some of the pain points they have. Many of them didn’t have room to store product. One big advantage we’re going to bring to the market from this site is consolidated shipping to the wholesalers or provinces. The market itself is still searching for efficiencies, still searching for ways to compete against the black market, still searching for ways to continue to reduce their cost of operation.”
In addition to warehousing and packaging, Metro Green offers full transportation management for licensed producers through a network of in-house and contracted secure carriers. This includes not only distribution from their Ontario warehouse to various provincial distributors or retailers, but also high security transportation for things like irradiation services, and—in those provinces where it is or will be allowed—third-party delivery services for retailers.
“We can pick it up from your store with our secure delivery service, and deliver it to your customer’s home,” he says.
As the industry becomes more streamlined, especially as provincial supply chains get more refined, Cranwill sees a lot of opportunity for cannabis producers to outsource many aspects of warehousing and distribution.
“I think this is the first step in allowing licensed producers an alternative to doing their own supply chain fulfillment. A lot of the LPs have had to do everything from day one. So we got involved to offer a service to those LPs that don’t want to focus on storing and picking products to ship to stores and instead let somebody who is dedicated to that side of the business take care of that process.”
Dany Lefebvre knows all about patience. He’s been waiting nearly a decade to see his vision for a cannabis business unfold. And, he knows it could still be a few more years before everything falls into place.
In the meantime, he’s been keeping busy building a consumer skincare brand and taking the time to learn more about hemp production so when the time is right, he can connect them like the entourage effect.
Lefebvre’s first entry into the cannabis industry began in early 2013 when he first started looking at acquiring a licence to produce under Canada’s newly-announced MMPR (Marhuana for Medical Purposes) regulation, then only in its early stages of discussion.
By 2013 with his partner Marie-Eve, they had decided to apply for such a licence and they moved their young family to a farm in a small village near Drummondville named Saint-Lucien Quebec. They began retrofitting an old on-site garage for an indoor medical cannabis production facility.
In that same year, they submitted an application for Vert Medical. After big media coverage, because they were the first Quebec corporation to go into that new industry, they received the help of Paul Rosen and Lorne Gertner; they invested with Pharmacan(now Cronos Group).
In the long wait for licensing during the Harper Government, Lefebvre then started working as a consultant and project manager for Pharmacan and Abcann Medicinals. This helped him build his Canadian network and a lot of new things. In 2015, he also began learning about the health benefits of hemp seeds and started looking at getting a hemp production licence, in addition to his commercial licence to produce medical cannabis.
Because a hemp production licence at the time only allowed for harvesting of seeds or fibre, Lefebvre says he started looking at how to integrate hemp seeds into a diet and often experimenting with recipes in his own home, sourcing material from others already licensed for hemp production in Canada.
“I started to really believe in hemp seeds. I began in my house, designing and packaging products I was getting from farmers in Saskatchewan and Manitoba and I found they were not only delicious but seemed to have great health benefits for the skin and the brain too. The more I looked at the possibility of hemp, the more I wanted to invest time and energy with this unique, perfectly balanced ingredient.”
While he was still waiting for his license for Vert Medical, Lefebvre received his hemp production licence for Groupe Hemp CA, his new hemp company, in 2015. The idea, he says, was to understand this plant and the growth phase like a farmer. In 2016, 11 different hemp cultivars were grown, male and female. With the family house within 50 feet of the field, summer 2016 was a great experience for them seeing the cannabis plants growing and flowering every day.
During that time, the cannabis company Canopy Growth was seeking a footprint in Quebec and Lefebvre met Bruce Linton. After a couple months of negotiation, and just after Tweed acquired Bedrocan and before the Mettrum acquisition, they completed the deal on November 1, 2016. Both Vert Medical and Groupe Hemp were acquired by Canopy.
“The deal with Tweed was insane and it really helped”, he explained. “What an awesome moment for us, we’d run out of cash flow at that time and it started to be alarming. The deal was an all-stock deal and happened just before the cannabis stock bubble, so it was a game-changer financially. At that time, I didn’t know much about the stock market and pubco but we’ve started to understand more after our shares were deposited in our new brokerage account!”
“I was hired by Tweed for a one-year contract. During that year with a team in Drummondville, we registered a hemp supplement for animals and brought it to market. As well we’ve been working transitioning the medical cannabis operation with the Tweed staff from Smith Falls to Saint-Lucien.”
After his one-year contract was done with Canopy, he immediately sought a new venture. Instead of starting from scratch, he decided to acquire La Feuille Verte (LFV), a Quebec corporation established in 2004. That small company was focused on natural skincare for 15 years with a consumer brand named CHANV.
Since day one, hemp seed oil has been part of all the formulations as an ingredient. Quickly, Lefebvre built a team of passionate people, now known as the LFV closeguard. They took CHANV, rebranded it, reformulated some products and before the end of 2017, CHANV hit the shelves at a couple of pharmacies and online store www.chanv.co/en.
At the same time, they moved the LFV headquarter from Sherbrooke to Drummondville inside a small and old Irish pub where Dany and his partner Marie-Eve operated for a couple of years prior. At the same time, Lefebvre had the ambition to create a Quebec flagship green corporation and was seeking a facility where he could manufacture consumer goods. They found an old slaughterhouse of 65,000 sq.ft facility situated on 220 acres owned by the municipality of St-Cyrille de Wendover.
La Feuille Verte – Headquarter
In June 2018, they completed the transaction and acquired the industrial building and the land. During the same time, they’ve acquired a hemp licence holder company with the goal of growing female hemp at the new LFV headquarter. A big retrofitting operation took place and the office and warehouse moved from the Old Irish Pub to the slaughterhouse just before the legalisation of cannabis in October 2018.
During the construction phase, the LFV team pursued their operation and hit more shelves with their skincare products. Dany and Marie-Eve brought a chairman to the table, M. Claude Lafleur, a well-known business person in Quebec. Lafleur has been the chairman of LFV for over 4 years now and also assists the LFV closeguard.
With a goal to innovate, LFV applied for an R&D cannabis licence and created a partnership with a Quebec University, just after legalisation. Consumer interest in “plant-based” products has been enormous, says Lefebvre. With an R&D licence, LFV was able to begin formulating active skincare products they could eventually sell over the counter.
The LFV farm subsidiary has grown female hemp for 3 years now and they harvest cannabinoids in a unique manner with a team of Guatemalans.
“Since then, our farm subsidiary has been playing with cultivars and techniques with a goal of harvesting unique active ingredients. At the same time, our product development team continues to play with formulations and prepare for the rules in Canada – a regulation to allow us to sell our CHANV ‘’Plant-Based’’ skincare products with cannabis active ingredients directly to consumers. We look forward to hitting the shelf with unique and efficient natural skincare products. Our own LFV entourage effect has something special, consumers already love our CHANV brand and with all the innovation and R&D in place now, the future looks green for us.”
CHANV – Skincare brand
Their strategy is to position themselves for a future regulation in which such products can be sold over the counter to consumers, rather than through the medical system or provincial non-medical cannabis stores. The ideal, he says, is selling cannabinoid-rich products through pharmacies and wellness stores and direct to consumers via the CHANV online store. He explains it is very different to work in an over-regulated industry like cannabis in Canada rather than a less regulated industry like the health and wellness sector.
Health Canada is currently in the process of consultation on the possibility of allowing a potential market for health products containing cannabis that would not require practitioner oversight, although if and when they rule in favour is still unknown, and could even be a few more years before a decision is made.
Lefebvre says he knows the process may still take a few more years. He’s spent the last nine years waiting for the law to catch up with his ideas, and waiting a few more is fine. In the meantime, he says, he can continue to experiment with formulations and build a stronger team, as well as stronger partnerships in the supply chain and distribution of the CHANV brand.
During that time, LFV is selling hemp seed products and the farm subsidiary is selling premium CBD and CBG flowers in bulk to Canadian licensed processors. All of this brought revenue and made La Feuille Verte a profitable corporation already.
“Our business model and the synergies of our ecosystem gives us an unfair advantage for the future. I’m happy to learn every day and make sure the team has the resources to reach their goals. As well, we are green at LFV. Climate change is a thing we care about and we make moves and take action to be a carbon-negative and sustainable company. With the LFV closeguard and a team of 35 employees, the evolution of our business model is great. The more we advance the more we learn. The relationships with partners are solid. It’s been a long road to get to this point and I’m really excited about what the future can bring.”
Canna-Curious can visit the LFV farm during summer and learn more about the potential of cannabis for their skin. All canna-tourists are welcome from July 15 to October 15.
Organnicraft was an idea Josh Udala had wanted to build upon for many years now.
The owner of the BC-based micro cultivator has been making waves with consumers with their small-batch, high-quality craft cannabis product for all of 2021, with products in six provinces and one territory. But the process of getting to this has taken him and his partners many years.
Udala and his team were growing cannabis in BC under medical licences for several years prior to legalization and had initially looked at a commercial licence under the MMPR but found the process too complex and costly.
Then, in 2018 when word of a new, smaller micro cannabis category came along, he and his partner decided this was a model they could take on, and they began the process. They found a location just outside Vernon, BC, acquired their micro cultivation licence in May 2020, and then their micro-processing licence about a year later.
Organnicraft works with Saskatchewan-based processor Shelter Cannabis to sell in several provincial markets. The processing licence, says Udala, has been key in maintaining the quality and pricing for consumers that Organinicraft is known for, while also helping make the business more financially sustainable.
Cultivation and processing licences for cannabis are two separate licences in Canada, allowing growers to specialize in one or the other, or combine the two. Although he says he’s happy to own more of the supply chain and be able to do more quality control on his own products, Udala emphasizes that Shelter has been a very useful partnership for them, managing many aspects of the supply chain beyond packaging that they were not yet initially ready to handle.
“We couldn’t have done it without their team. They hit the ground running and helped us establish the brand. But controlling our own packaging has really helped because it gives us that much more control over the process before we hand it off for sale.”
Udala believes the ability to control more of the supply chain is part of why they have been successful thus far. Packaging in their own facility means being able to move product from drying and curing and into a bag much faster, which preserves freshness, before shipping the product off to a provincial buyer themselves.
Shelter also helped them to implement new packaging labels and nitrogen sealing methods to take their packaging to the next level. Although they still partner with Shelter to utilize their sales license and sales team, their processing license allows them to do most things themselves. Nothing in our packaging, drying, trimming or even growing is automated,” explains Udala.
“Everything is done by hand. There are eyes on everything all the way through, and there’s no shortcut to quality. We watch everything so tightly, from when we bring soil into the grow room to when we put the bud in the package.”
The next step for Organnicraft is two new micro cultivation licences in BC. Although they had originally considered expanding their facility, Udala says they found it more affordable to retrofit existing buildings in other locations.
“Quality sells, and as more micro producers come on-line, or even the people going into standard facilities but still doing small-batch, those are the ones who are going to be able to stay ahead of the game in the long run.
Josh udala, Organnicraft
By maintaining the small grow rooms of a micro in new locations, Udala says he thinks they will have a chance to replicate what they are beginning to perfect while also seeing the differences from each new site’s cultivation team.
“We’re going to continue to produce a high-quality, small-batch product. That won’t change as we expand. We’ll still stick to the same small-scale rooms. We have a comprehensive R&D plan so we can stay on top of pheno hunting and developing our own flavours so we always have something unique and small-batch as the years go by and the industry progresses.
“But we also want to be consistent and not constantly changing up cultivars so we always have offerings available for different types of consumers and can meet supply chain demands . We have been very fortunate to have partners in the industry and other long term relationships to collaborate with and get us to this point”
Although they are actively working on the schedule for 2022 he isn’t quite ready to reveal the new offerings, Organnicraft will continue to produce current offerings that consumers have come to love. Plus, a couple new offerings part way through the year. Udala emphasizes that being ready to take it step-by-step is an important and cautionary tale for growers looking to transition into the market.
“Everyone wants that hundred light facility from the get-go, but some people might want to pull back and start small at first before investing a million dollars into a facility. Do a few small rooms, get some cash flow, then build out. It’s a lot different than just putting in a room under an MMPR or ACMPR licence, becoming successful in the legal market is literally starting over.”
And he would know. Udala’s other job over the last several years when not growing cannabis and building Organnicraft was managing his own construction company, Concentric Controls, specializing in cannabis construction for both commercial and personal medical grows. Concentric provides construction, design, and consulting for those looking to build their own grow facility up to federal standards.
“I think it’s totally viable,” says Udala about the 200m2 canopy limit of micros. “But you need to know your genetics, facility and team and know they are going to produce the quantity and quality that is going to give you that return on investment within a reasonable time. Attention to detail is everything.
“Quality sells, and as more micro producers come on-line, or even the people going into standard facilities but still doing small-batch, those are the ones who are going to be able to stay ahead of the game in the long run.
“Consumers don’t want to go out and buy a product that is simply just not enjoyable. Cannabis needs to have a great smell, a great look, and a great flavour not just numbers on bags. Producing football fields of the stuff just doesn’t cut it. So being in that small-batch, high-quality market, I think it’s a sustainable business at that point. And, I think the price per gram should stay stable for those who are able to produce quality”
Kootenay towns from Nelson, Cranbrook, Casltegar, and Creston now have a Kootenay brand they can call their own.
Kootenays Finest Craft Cannabis is a micro cultivator located in Crawford Bay, BC, looking to bring the region’s famous BC Bud to consumers across Canada.
The creation of two legacy-era growers from the region, Kevin McBride and Sal Couling, the company itself is a testament to the cooperative nature of the Kootenay cannabis community. McBride says they were the first of many companies to graduate through a local program designed to help local growers transition to the legal market. They also secured a low-interest loan to help find their company.
Jellysickle
The organization, Community Futures Central Kootenay, is a not-for-profit community economic development organization that for the past few years has had a program to assist growers looking to get a licence to grow or process cannabis.
“We were one of the first companies involved in the CBTI, the Cannabis Business Transition Initiative from the Nelson Community Futures, a provincially funded pilot project the first of its kind in Canada,” explains McBride.
In addition, Kootenay’s Finest uses a local trimming crew, Nelson’s Green Team Solutions, to help with harvests. The Green Team is a mobile trim crew offering a living wage for expert trimmers from the greater Kootenay region.
“We’re old school legacy guys from the Kootenays,” says McBride. “And the Kootenays is a central hub for cannabis, so we’re just trying to bring that to all of Canada. We’ve been well-known across Canada in the legacy market, so we’re just trying to bring that to the rec market and offer a living soil organic product that can stand out a bit.”
McBride says he’s hopeful about the future of small micro cultivators like Kootenays Finest—if not also a bit cautious—and that he and his partner want to create a new legacy, one that can be passed on to their kids.
“Our team consists of our “Next Gen” crew, our sons, daughters, nephews from our small community to help carry the torch of organic Kootenay craft cannabis.”
“No one’s getting rich, but we’re just getting started. We’re trying to just get everything dialled in, streamlining our processes more, finding the right plants that work for us and we can get a good price for. But we’ve had some good feedback on our cultivars and have some new ones later this winter that are looking really good.”
Kootenays Finest Craft Cannabis (licensed as Sen Pharms) had their first batch of dried flower, Jellysickle, on the market in October—partnering with Shelter Brands to get products on shelves in BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well as Shelter’s medical platform—and will have two more varieties in the same markets in November, White Chocolate Diamonds and Red Rilla Pie.
Huron OPP say a warning they issued Monday about “suspected edibles” found in Halloween candy was a false alarm.
After putting out a press release on Monday warning of these suspected cannabis edibles based on a report from a concerned parent, the OPP says the person who distributed the candy reached out to tell them it was actually just regular candy they had packaged themselves.
“As a result of an earlier media release seeking information, the individual that distributed the Halloween treat bag contacted Huron OPP this evening. Police met with the individual and have since learned approximately 25 similar bags were distributed. The treat bags contained only candy.”
An image shared online by Huron OPP showed a picture of what appeared to be normal gummies along with plain black packaging. That image has since been deleted.
Police say the package of gummies involved in this incident was handed out in the Town of Wroxeter sometime Halloween night.
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.”
“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.”
Sam Harrison, Jazz Cabbage
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.”
The goal, they say, is to address a common problem plaguing small-batch growers in BC and all across Canada, where smaller batch products, especially outdoor, are more difficult to sell into provincial markets.
Che Leblanc, the owner of Rosebuds, says that the intention behind all of these different farms growing the same variety of cannabis is to maintain small-batch, craft integrity, while still benefiting from a larger, combined harvest to contribute to Rosebuds product lines that will be sold into the provincial retail systems.
Micros are limited to 200m2 of production space. Although Leblanc’s Rosebud Cannabis Farms is a standard cultivator with no size limit on their potential production space, Leblanc says they have stayed relatively small themselves to ensure they can maintain quality.
We’ve decided to cap our site at a certain size because beyond that we would start to lose quality and the craft aspects of it. So rather than growing larger on our farm, we want to work with other small farms in the Kootenays to expand our harvest.”
Che Leblanc, Rosebud Cannabis
Rosebud provides the genetics and asks the growers to all utilize similar “regenerative” growing techniques, focusing away from synthetic inputs from off-site, and then buys their harvest from them at the end of the season.
“What we’re doing with this community of micro growers is giving them our genetics and supporting them with production methods,” explains Leblanc. “Then, at the end of the year, we buy the biomass back off of them at a fair price and put them into our product line.
“There are two opportunities that come out of this: one is to support our community—to give them a fair price and help our region—and the second is to add more biomass to our product line. We’ve decided to cap our site at a certain size because beyond that we would start to lose quality and the craft aspects of it. So rather than growing larger on our farm, we want to work with other small farms in the Kootenays to expand our harvest.”
Green Wynds Farm
Leblanc says the group takes part in weekly phone calls to check-in, and some members also take the time to visit his farm to better learn about his preferred growing techniques, then taking those practices back to their own farm.
The connections that create the collaborative platform for Rosebuds came from mutual connections with the local Community Futures cannabis program in the Kootenays that has helped many of the members, including Leblanc, to get licensed.
Jimi Holland, owner of Wholeland Enterprises in Kaslo BC, says he started looking at the micro licensing project in 2020, but it wasn’t until he worked with the local Community Futures chapter that he found a relatively even path into the licensing process.
“I discovered that Community Futures had a program to assist people to transition,” he explains. “Once I got hooked up with the Community Futures team, things started rolling really well. It was excellent.”
Jimi Holland
But once licensed, Holland says one of his major concerns was figuring out how he would sell his product after hearing this was a challenge for other outdoor growers, especially micros.
“The real weak link for me was finding a market. But through Community Futures I found out that Che was starting a bit of an informal working group, so I started talking with them, and Che was able to get me genetics and said he could find buyers. So far it’s going pretty good.”
The expectation is for crops to come down in September and October, and then be processed for extraction for use in topicals and eventually vape carts. The strain they’re all growing is Sarah’s Secret, a creation of Leblanc’s, and one he says grows well in the Kootenay region checking all the boxes.
“Getting an outdoor licence isn’t as difficult as some people think it is,” says Ross. “The difficult part is how you sell it and where it goes and what it goes into. So this is a regional strategy of how we can create a retail pathway for farmers, whether they’re indoor or outdoor.”
Shannon Ross, Kootneay Futures
Although the plan for this year is to work with another processor to get to market, long-term they plan to be processing in a facility just outside Nelson that is being developed by some of those who had been involved in the Kootenay Community Futures program.
Shannon Ross, who played a key role in helping many of the Rose Buddies members, and others, get their micro cultivation licences, is also one of the people behind this processing facility, Antidote, which they hope to have licensed in 2022—in time to process for local growers like Rose Buddies. LeBlanc and Rosebud Cannabis Farms is also a 25% owner of Antidote.
“Getting an outdoor licence isn’t as difficult as some people think it is,” says Ross. “The difficult part is how you sell it and where it goes and what it goes into. So this is a regional strategy of how we can create a retail pathway for farmers, whether they’re indoor or outdoor.”
Kalibri Wetsch and James Wood, Green Wynds Farm
“So part of the challenge that people have been facing is not having huge volumes of cannabis to go into one particular product. So what we have found is if we have several outdoor micro cultivators, if they’re all growing different types and batches and there’s no consistency, those are some challenges that a lot of the outdoor growers have had.”
The intense local focus of the Community Futures Program helped birth the Rose Buddies program, she says.
“There’s a lot of collaboration that just started to happen naturally, and Rose Buddies kind of naturally grew out of that,” she says. “Having a community of people to ask questions and help each other out and recognizing the challenges that a lot of the outdoor growers have in getting to market. Because it’s one thing to grow cannabis, it’s another to get it to market.”
“Somehow we all just started meeting every week and it just made sense to all learn from each other and support each other, and also find a way into the market. It’s pretty tough for an outdoor micro to enter the market.”
Kalibri Wetsch, Green Wynds
Kalibri Wetsch at Green Wynds in Crawford Bay, another outdoor micro taking part in the Rose Buddies program, echoes that feeling of community collaboration. She and her partner James Wood have been gardening on their plot of land for over a decade and met Leblanc last year through mutual friends and the Community Futures program.
“I had been to Che’s farm to help with harvest last year and then I learned about Rose Buddies through the Community Futures program and it all came together,” she says. “Somehow we all just started meeting every week and it just made sense to all learn from each other and support each other, and also find a way into the market. It’s pretty tough for an outdoor micro to enter the market.”
Pineapple Buds is a micro cultivator located on Osoyoos Indian Band land near Oliver, BC, with a focus on what the owner Kyra Horvath says is cannabis that tastes like pineapple.
Kyra with the help of her partner Laine Keyes received a micro cultivation license this past April and expect their first crops, Pineapple Party and Hawaiian Pineapple, to hit shelves in the coming weeks in BC, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and then Ontario in January, through Joint Venture Craft Cannabis.
The 10,000ft2 building, on old wine storage facility she converted into two small grow rooms utilizing deep water culture, a mother room, drying and storage for their cannabis, affords room for future expansion to either a processing licence or perhaps a standard cultivation licence, but for the time being the 200m2 of cultivation space is more than enough, says Horvath, the company’s founder.
“I actually really do like the 200 square meters,” says Keyes. “It is ideal for the two of us to be operating. I think once you begin to have more employees in the facility, I can see why you would want to upgrade and do a different style licence, but for us, right now, it’s absolutely perfect. On some days the 200 square meters seems almost too big for the two of us.”
The Pineapple Buds facility on Osoyoos Indian Band land
Horvath says she and her partner, Keyes, have experience in both the legacy and legal market in Canada and decided to move forward with their own micro cultivation licence late last year. They applied in December 2020, receiving their micro cultivation licence in April. Five months later their first two crops are ready for the consumer market.
Horvath attributes the relative speed with which they received their licence to being able to utilize Health Canada’s Indigenous Navigator service, which provided them with more hands-on assistance through the licensing process.
“I’m really happy that Health Canada did introduce that type of program because it allowed us to use those services where, when you’re dealing with a reviewer that may have specific questions, it’s an outlet you can look to for some answers you might not know.”
Nonetheless, the process wasn’t cheap, she explained, spending around $1 million to secure, renovate, and equip their building.
“It’s not easy, it’s not cheap,” she says. “And being a small company it doesn’t just come your way, you really have to work for it. Any of the labour, I was happy to help with the process if that got us closer to getting to a licence. I was insulating, I was putting up the walls myself. And we do almost all the work ourselves, although we do bring in people to help with things like pruning, harvesting, and trimming.”
The intent initially is to focus on cultivation, while partnering with a processor to handle delivering their products to market. But long term, Horvath says she has set aside space within the 10,000ft2 facility to either develop their own processing area, a farmgate retail space, or perhaps expand to a standard cultivation licence.
“We will be partnering with someone else for our first initial harvests because we want to really focus on cultivation. Come the time when there are available finances, we do have space in our facility that has not been touched yet, so it makes for a great opportunity if we want to look at processing or maybe even a standard licence. And we’re always keeping farmgate in the back of our mind because our location is ideal for tours, or whatever farmgate may look like for cannabis.”
“We want to keep things as simple as possible, so we’ll be starting with dried flower and pre-rolls,” she explains. “When it comes to getting into other products, I never rule anything out but it needs to be one step at a time and be the right relationship and the right product.
With an array of “pineapple” genetics they have developed over the years and brought in with their licence, Pineapple Buds hope to be known for pineapple buds.
“One thing that we really want to work on is once consumers go to a dispensary to buy products there’s such a limited interaction with the product,” she says. “They can’t see it, they can’t smell it, it’s just in a jar. So for us, we really want to nail that we’ll be providing pineapple flavours. If people want a good quality product that’s pineapple flavoured, that’s us.”
Cannabis License Experts is a compliance solutions provider for the cannabis industry, providing pre and post-licensing support for both the production side and retail side of the industry.
Leveraging over 15 years of collective experience and industry knowledge from a team that includes former QAPs and other employees from Canada’s largest licensed cannabis producers, Health Canada inspectors, and other consulting companies, the firm offers trust, transparency and respect, says Andrew Parshad, the company’s President and Founder.
“What makes Cannabis License Experts unique is the diverse compliance and affiliate business solutions that we offer for cannabis and psychedelics companies, and how we weave business development opportunities into our service offering,” explains Parshad. “Leveraging our history in Health Canada and FDA compliance for the last 20 years in the consumer packaged goods, alcohol and beverage and pharmaceutical industry, we’re able to guide cannabis companies to avoid pitfalls and mistakes and to integrate regulations and compliance in their decision making.”
Cannabis License Experts
The explosion in interest in the cannabis space led Parshad to grow Cannabis Licence Experts out of Quality Smart Solutions. In addition to providing assistance in the cannabis industry, Cannabis Licence Experts also assist those navigating the licensing process in the psychedelic space, such as psilocybe mushrooms.
Initially offering consulting in the medical cannabis licensing space pre-legalization under their sister consulting firm, Quality Smart Solutions since 2007, Cannabis License Experts was created as its own cannabis compliance solutions in 2018.
“(In 2018), we felt it was the right time to create a separate company dedicated to cannabis and psychedelics compliance just as legalization was about to start,” Parshad says. “Having been active in regulatory compliance and quality assurance since 2001, and as a consultant serving over 1,100 companies since 2015, in addition to being involved in policy and regulatory framework development with Health Canada, all coupled with my expertise in various Health Canada cannabis regulations, it was a natural extension to expand those offerings.”
With over 250 cannabis license applications under the ACMPR and the Cannabis Act and Regulations, Parshad says he’s seen a lot of different applicants and the challenges that many of them face. One of the biggest challenges is in understanding the cost and timeline of the licensing process, at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels.
“The most common mistake applicants make is understanding the cost and timelines, and lack of business planning,” he says. “For example, many applicants don’t have an in-depth discussion with their municipality to understand how issues like zoning will impact their application and their business. This is particularly the case for federal licenses like cultivation where water and utility usage is significantly higher than with other businesses. In some cases, zoning restrictions are not investigated which could cause issues downstream.”
Ensuring a proper business plan is in place before beginning the application process is incredibly important, he says.
“Doing due diligence and planning upstream before proceeding with licensing is key. After we start on the application, details like HVAC, equipment, even construction plans have sometimes not been thought through, and all of this should be captured in a business plan that covers both financial and operational aspects of a plan. We strongly encourage our clients to have a business plan before embarking on their journey to start a cannabis business.”
Despite these kinds of hurdles, Parshad says he sees a lot of opportunity in the cannabis space for those who do come to the table with a solid business plan and understanding of the industry.
“Overall the industry is heading in a positive direction,” adds Parshad. “The licensing process has become more efficient and streamlined since the inception of legalization. Health Canada has been providing guidance documents, templates, submission methods and revising requirements which ultimately benefits both Health Canada in throughput to licensing and the applicant. When it comes to reviewing a licence application, Health Canada assessment officers are very helpful and flexible. But the intricacies of a license application are still complex and the benefit of a consultant still goes a long way to getting licensed faster.”
With over 250 cannabis license applications under the ACMPR and the Cannabis Act and Regulations, Parshad says he’s seen a lot of different applicants and the challenges that many of them face. One of the biggest challenges is in understanding the cost and timeline of the licensing process, at the federal, provincial, and municipal levels.
“The most common mistake applicants make is understanding the cost and timelines, and lack of business planning,” he says. “For example, many applicants don’t have an in-depth discussion with their municipality to understand how issues like zoning will impact their application and their business. This is particularly the case for federal licenses like cultivation where water and utility usage is significantly higher than with other businesses. In some cases, zoning restrictions are not investigated which could cause issues downstream.”
Ensuring a proper business plan is in place before beginning the application process is incredibly important, he says.
“Doing due diligence and planning upstream before proceeding with licensing is key. After we start on the application, details like HVAC, equipment, even construction plans have sometimes not been thought through, and all of this should be captured in a business plan that covers both financial and operational aspects of a plan. We strongly encourage our clients to have a business plan before embarking on their journey to start a cannabis business.”
Despite these kinds of hurdles, Parshad says he sees a lot of opportunity in the cannabis space for those who do come to the table with a solid business plan and understanding of the industry.
“Overall the industry is heading in a positive direction,” adds Parshad. “The licensing process has become more efficient and streamlined since the inception of legalization. Health Canada has been providing guidance documents, templates, submission methods and revising requirements which ultimately benefits both Health Canada in throughput to licensing and the applicant. When it comes to reviewing a licence application, Health Canada assessment officers are very helpful and flexible. But the intricacies of a license application are still complex and the benefit of a consultant still goes a long way to getting licensed faster.”
Smoker Farms is an indoor micro cultivator, licensed in June 2020, located just outside Kelowna, BC.
Sheri and Jeff Aubin, the couple behind the company, began looking at the micro cultivation licence soon after legalization, with head grower Jeff looking to transition out of the black market while still continuing his passion for growing cannabis.
With over a half dozen harvests under their belt now, and several crops sold in the provincial markets, including their home of BC, the couple says they are beginning to get a handle on things.
Growing in rock wool on flood tables within their 200m2 of cultivation space, Jeff has focussed on two strains early on, The Ultimate, and a Master Kush Ultra he says he’s been growing for 15 years. But despite being confident in his growing skills, honed over 25 years in the black market, he says getting product into retail stores and then into consumer hands in such a highly saturated market is not easy.
“As craft growers, it’s hard for people to know who we are when they have, you know, so many different choices of 20% weed in the dispensary,” he explains. “So how can they know who we are, and what we’re doing? It’s slow going, but we’re hopeful.
“We need to be heard, we need to be found. And the provinces have only so many SKUs they can buy. So that’s a big challenge”
It’s a new, challenging market and unfortunately, you have all these big multi-million dollar companies out there selling product into the market that isn’t very good and it turns people off. So that’s a challenge for us to convince people to give us a try if they’ve been burned like that.”
Jeff Aubin, Smoker Farms
It’s been a steep learning curve, he says, with advantages and disadvantages. While he was ready to get out of the black market, learning how to run such a highly regulated business has been a big change.
“I had been a black market grower for 25 years now, and I knew I wanted to get out of the game and I didn’t want to deal with all the bullshit anymore, looking over my shoulder waiting on people to knock on your door, that kind of thing,” says Jeff.
Master Kush Ultra
“It’s not easy being legal, either. It’s great to be open about what we do and know that we aren’t going to be arrested, but it’s not easy. It’s just work work work. It’s hard to break into the retail space. So hopefully the money comes. I just love growing weed, and I hope the rest of it works out.”
“I wear a lot of hats,” he continues. “I’m facilities management, an electrician, a plumber, head grower, you name it. And if there’s something I don’t know, there’s a lot of people here in the community who can help me. But it’s basically a husband and wife team for the most part, other than help with harvesting or trimming.”
With only their micro cultivation licence, Smoker Farms has to sell their product in bulk to another processor who packages it and deals with selling it to the provinces who then sell it to retailers. Although this means they make a little less on their cannabis, it also means they have fewer expenses associated with it, such as packaging, excise taxes, provincial recall insurance, and the time dealing with provinces and retailers.
“We’re not interested in a processing licence whatsoever,” he says. “For us, we’re pretty good at what we’re doing here, we don’t want to complicate things any more than we need to. So we’re okay with selling to someone else to package and sell it.”
Although he’s hopeful about the legal market and ready to stick it out for the long haul, he cautions anyone else looking to make the move into the market to be prepared to spend a lot and wait a long time to make it back. He estimates he spent around $700,000 retrofitting his facility to expand it and bring it into compliance, transitioning the warehouse he was growing under a medical licence into his indoor micro facility.
“For us, we’re pretty good at what we’re doing here, we don’t want to complicate things any more than we need to. So we’re okay with selling to someone else to package and sell it.”
Jeff Aubin, Smoker Farms
“Whatever you think your budget is going to be, probably triple it. There are so many hidden costs. And not only that, but once you get your licence, you might think you can grow some weed and get some revenue in a few months, but it doesn’t work like that.
“It takes a long time to get into stores and then get paid. It’s complicated. There’s no quick money or instant gratification here, it’s all very long term. It’s a new, challenging market and unfortunately, you have all these big multi-million dollar companies out there selling product into the market that isn’t very good and it turns people off. So that’s a challenge for us to convince people to give us a try if they’ve been burned like that.”
Wildwood Flowr Inc. is an outdoor micro cultivation in Westcock, New Brunswick, with a focus on regenerative, organic agriculture.
Tucked away on the back end of a three-acre property, and surrounded by shipping containers—camouflage to blend in with the landscape—head grower Randy Flemming is tinkering away with different varieties, trying to find the right ones that are ideal for his small piece of New Brunswick.
The outdoor grow is in a courtyard formed by the shipping containers, creating what Flemming says is a secure boundary, as well as helpful production space for drying, trimming, office space, and in the future small scale processing.
The shipping containers, in addition to creating indoor working space, create a 6,400 sq ft courtyard that allows for their allotted 200 m of cultivation space (~2,153 sq ft), plus enough room to move around.
“It allows us a lot of space to plant out and gives us room to work” he explains. In the meanwhile we have these nine and a half foot shipping containers around it so you’ve got this incredible security and fantastic wind block, so we went with that. And then we covered the outside to blend in better with the surroundings, which it does really well.”
He says at first some neighbours were skeptical, but now that they see what they’ve done, the response has been supportive.
“They weren’t sure in the beginning what it would look like and now they keep giving us compliments, so it’s going well.”
Licensed this past April, Flemming and his daughter Jenna Miller had 80 plants in the ground by the end of June, a handful of different phenotypes Flemming wants to continue to experiment with, while also producing what he expects will be several pounds of cannabis per plant, to be processed into cannabis oil for use in other products.
While his partner Av Singh focuses more on the processing—submitting their own processing licence this year and working with other processors in the meantime—Flemming is focused on selecting the right varieties.
“It’s really important to understand what your cost of production is going to be, so that you’ll have realistic expectations on what your return will be.”
Av Singh, Flemming & Singh Cannabis Inc and QAP advisor at Wildwood Flowr
He says he’s spent many years growing under a medical licence or as a hobby, although often more for research purposes than for large yields.
“I wasn’t growing as much cannabis as I could, I was growing to figure out what causes each deficiency, how do I feed these deficiencies or problems, how do I find the most stable genetics,” says Flemming.
This allows him to better learn exactly how to deal with any problems that might arise, but doesn’t prevent him from feeling confident that he can get several pounds per plant, based on past yields.
Ideally, he also wants to get a nursery licence, so he can have more space available to experiment with different varieties, trying to find some more stable and more appropriate for outdoor growing in New Brunswick.
“I believe that the more people who are willing to put the effort into doing things like that, the more stable a variety that gets put into the marketplace. In the future, I’d like to own a nursery, to back crop these seeds to give something to farmers so that they can drop ten thousand of these seeds and it is extremely close in terms of the COAs of the plant beside it.”
“If no one is truly back cropping their genetics, eight maybe ten times, there’s something missing,” continues Flemming. “So I want to champion that and be a steward of that, and not just hybridize everything that comes along that we can get in our hands for a profit.”
By focusing on a low-cost, organic production method, growing directly in the soil and using things like fermented teas to fertilize the plants, Singh says they can keep their overall costs of production very low.
Singh, who also helped Flemming with the federal licensing process, says keeping this low cost of production is incredibly important, especially for small-scale outdoor growers, with current outdoor prices often well under a dollar a gram.
“It’s really important to understand what your cost of production is going to be,“ says Singh, “so that you’ll have realistic expectations on what your return will be. If you can produce your product for twenty cents a gram that’s great, make sure you’re formulating relationships with processing companies, and then hopefully, as outdoor, you’ll get forty or fifty cents a gram.”
“Our goal is extraction, whether we produce the extract ourselves, or work with someone else until then.”
Randy Flemming, Head grower at Wildwood Flowr Inc
Flemming says one option that many micro cultivators put their hopes on to get a better price produce for their product, cannabis farmgate, isn’t for him. Although he’s open to operating a small store in another location if New Brunswick allowed it.
“In our particular circumstance, I wouldn’t want it. But if I could have a secondary location in town or something like that I would probably do that. The trouble with putting it here is it puts a lot of pressure on the neighbours for traffic that didn’t exist before.”
He says that those who are pinning their hopes on it, to be cautious in terms of expectations, should it ever become a reality. Rather than a small farm stand, he says he expects there will be a need for the same types of rules already in place for cannabis stores.
“I think a lot of people may not be prepared for that, so I hope they are looking into it,” he says.
Instead, he says he wants to just produce low-cost outdoor flower for extraction.
“Our goal is extraction, whether we produce the extract ourselves, or work with someone else until then.”
KRFT is a micro cultivator and processor in Newfoundland and Labrador, started by Newfoundlander Nicholas Langor.
Licensed in August 2020, Langor says he is starting as a micro but has plans of scaling up in the future, potentially to become a standard cultivator and processor once they can prove out their model at this small scale.
After already completing several harvests from their two flowering rooms and having products on shelves in Newfoundland as well as through Shelter Market’s online medical platform, he says he’s excited to begin to see how consumers respond to their products.
Currently growing strains like Unicorn Sherbert, Mac 1, Apple Fritter, Jelly Breath, Peanut Butter Breath, Cereal Milk, Runtz, Mimosa, and Ice Cream Cake, the partnerships to get to market have been key, he explains. Although some micros say they want to be able to control all aspects of production, KRFT is happy to find partners to help them reach consumers.
“Relationships and partnerships in this industry are crucial for creating opportunities for micros and although we do plan to obtain our own processing licence, it’s not our goal to be processing and packaging our own flower and distributing our own flower,” says Langor. “There are many organizations who currently have great control over supply chain distribution and I think that if we leverage those who are doing it well, then we all benefit. So it’s a mutually beneficial arrangement for us to align ourselves with like-minded organizations who recognize quality products that micro cultivation facilities are producing.”
“It all comes down to quality product. If you’re producing a quality product there’s definitely a solid market for micros to participate in with buyers who are paying good money, as well.”
Finding partners who understand how to navigate the provincial markets is key, he says, and it allows him and his team to focus on growing rather than marketing and networking with provincial buyers.
“Depending on who you align yourself with, these are organizations that have invested a lot of time, money and resources solidifying relationships with the different provinces,” continues Langor. “There’s a value to those relationships and it’s virtually impossible for micros to be able to participate in the various different supply chains. It’s just not feasible when you look at a single micros output to reasonably expect to be able to participate in multiple supply chains.”
These relationships are a two-way street, he says, because many of the companies who have developed these relationships don’t necessarily have the quality or unique cultivators that many micros have.
“As a micro we’ve been fortunate to align ourselves with some great producers who can help us get into different markets,” he explains. “The industry right now is competitive, the provinces are more aware, and they recognize that the SKUs put on their shelves need to be desirable to the consumer. I don’t think it would be in our best interest to try to create those relationships ourselves. It’s better to align ourselves with partners who will benefit from the production of craft cannabis because there is a pivotal shift in the industry right now. A lot of producers are recognizing that they simply aren’t able to produce quality products and there’s a growing supply of quality produced craft cannabis from micro cultivators.”
One of these producers KRFT is working with is Indiva, an Ontario-based LP that has a distribution channel open with CannabisNL.
“This is a value that a lot of larger organizations are looking for in their business models, and this is the value that micros bring to the market. We like to see our products carried across the nation, but it would be virtually impossible for us to manage that supply chain ourselves. So it’s integral to the success of our business to be aligned with companies like Indiva. Shelter is another company that has built up their reputation on providing quality service and we’re honoured to be doing business with those guys, as well.”
KRFT’s plan is to slowly scale up in the coming years, potentially to having multiple micros on their three-acre property in Georges Brook, about two hours outside Saint John’s.
“The parcel of land we have has the ability to quickly scale our business if the circumstances permit,” he says. “With a micro, all we’ll have to do is segregate those buildings with a unique address. But as we move further into this industry and refine our processes, I believe, for us, it would make sense to maintain the same style of growing, the same attention to detail, but under a larger roof as a standard cultivator and processor. As opposed to having three additional micros it would make sense to step up to a standard licence with the same sort of scale in mind.”
The micro landscape will be challenging, says Langor, but he sees a bright future for those companies who can both manage to consistently put out a quality product, while also understanding the complexities of a regulated industry like cannabis.
“There’re certainly challenges. Unless you’re well-capitalized and have experience in the industry and you have the capabilities, it’s very difficult to get to market. I can definitely see a lot of micros facing challenges, but for us this was the right move to make with a new industry and a lot of uncertainties and a lot of unknowns. This was a way for us to enter the market, create a brand, create awareness, and then if we’re fortunate enough to be successful, then we will look at scaling our business appropriately.”
“There’s no doubt about it that the micro has some limitations,” he continues. “There are a lot of barriers, especially for those coming from the legacy market where there are a lot of things that are cut out of the equation where a lot of regulations and quality standards are not applicable.
“Growing good weed is just one component. Having a solid business acumen and understanding the regulatory framework, these are equally important to the success of a micro. I think a lot of micros underestimate the importance of regulation and quality assurance. They can find themselves growing great products but if you’re unable to run a business successfully or unable to create relationships and solve problems to get your product to market, then there’s a lot of challenges.
“I think balancing those things is where we can really shine, and I think our track record is already speaking for itself.”
Alicanto Gardens is a new, family-run micro cultivator in Manitoba that hopes to have its first products on the shelves in Manitoba later this summer.
Alicanto Gardens is a new, family-run micro cultivator in Manitoba that hopes to have its first products on the shelves in Manitoba later this summer.
Run by Waldemar Heidebrecht, his wife Larissa, daughter Jennifer and son Justin, the company received their micro cultivation licence last December through a partnership with Manitoba producer and retailer Delta9 BioTech.
They started down the path of getting a cannabis licence more than two years ago, explains Jennifer, when the family was looking at building a small, hydroponic “microgreens” facility to supply local markets. After running into some challenges with that model, she says it didn’t take long for them to realize they could do something similar except with cannabis instead of salad greens.
“We’re all new to cannabis, but we wanted to find something that we could run as a family, and when we learned about the micro cannabis licence that seemed to make the most sense,” she says. “We were first thinking about growing microgreens and salad greens hydroponically, as well as other food products, but because of some challenges in working with buyers and the middlemen, we eventually landed on doing cannabis instead.”
Waldemar, who wears most of the official “hats” at the company—serving as the RPIC, Head of Security, and Master Grower—says they soon learned about fellow Manitoba cannabis company Delta9—who has a program to help micro cultivators get licensed and into the market— they quickly jumped on board.
Using a farm property about an hour south of Winnipeg that the family already owned, they began retrofitting an existing machine shop and filled it with 12 pre-built SeaCan “grow pods” supplied by Delta9. They were ready to apply by August of 2020 and received their licence in December.
Waldermar attributes the relatively short timeline from licence submission to issuance to their partnership with Delta9.
“It was pretty smooth because Delta9 gave us all the info we needed on how to do it,” Waldermar explains. “We had everything completed so we didn’t have to change anything and Health Canada seemed pretty happy with that. They were familiar with Delta9’s grow pods, SOPs, and paperwork and I think that really helped.”
Now that they are licensed, the partnership also means they have a buyer for their product already lined up. Once it’s ready, their product will be sold through Delta9’s several retail locations in the province. This will allow them to focus on growing, leaving packaging, marketing, and sales to their partner.
“Right now we’re happy to stay with Delta9, for as long as it works out,” he continues. We’re not interested in changing around. If something changes we might try to find another partner, but either way I think we will stay with cultivation and work with a partner of some kind. We’re not interested in getting our processing licence at this time. This way we can perfect our growing techniques and have help getting it to the market.”
Currently, Alicanto Gardens is focussing on two strains for market, Blue Iguana and Layer Cake, which he says he’s chosen because they are known as higher-THC cultivars.
“We have other things we’d like to grow, but that’s what the market wants right now so that’s what we’re focussing on”, he says. “We have a fair amount of seeds we brought in so if we need to change it up we can do that, too.”
“We’re excited to get our first flower out there and see what people say. We’re a small, local, family-run Manitoba business. There’s a lot to learn in this new industry and we’re going to keep growing with it.”
CannDelta is a regulatory and scientific consulting firm specializing in cannabis licensing in Canada. Founded by Dr. Sherry Boodram and Dr. Lucas McCann in 2018, CannDelta has helped numerous producers, retailers, and others seeking to navigate the highly regulated cannabis industry.
The company got its start from the two founders’ background of working with Health Canada, explains McCann. He had been working as a Chemist at the Health Products branch within Health Canada, and Boodram had worked first as a Drug Forensic Chemist with the federal regulator, analyzing controlled substances seized by law enforcement, and then as a Senior Compliance and Enforcement Officer for the Medical Cannabis program run by Health Canada.
When the two left their respective jobs at Health Canada, they quickly began hearing from people operating in or planning to operate in the cannabis industry who were looking for guidance.
A consultant (or consulting firm) should be able to do more than just state the rules or regulations, they should also be able to guide you through launching a successful business.
“We both often found ourselves having to interpret the regulations to lay-persons, acting as the interpreter for Health Canada and the proponent, effectively becoming a liaison,” explains McCann. “This is a special skill that CannDelta brings to the table compared to other consulting companies in the space. It was easy for us to see the disconnect between what Health Canada, an organization that thinks in black and white, expects versus how business-minded people actually think.”
This happened mostly through word of mouth, continues McCann. Many who were interested in gaining a better understanding of Health Canada’s way of operating, the expectations of regulators, and how to best work within regulatory frameworks reached out to the duo directly.
What started as just the two of them offering their services as freelancers quickly blossomed into a full-fledged consulting firm, now with 20 employees across Canada.
“The main reason that CannDelta has seen such growth was because of people’s need for someone who understands the regulations from the regulators’ perspective as well as the science of cannabis, operating in a quality system, and writing and understanding technical documents, such as standard operating procedures,” says Boodram. “Lucas and I bring our PhD’s in chemistry, with an academic style of writing and thinking, along with our Health Canada experience.”
Many of CannDelta’s current team members have worked for licensed cannabis producers in their quality, operations, and regulatory departments. Others worked in compliance departments within the government or in other regulated industries, such as pharma.
This array of experience helps ensure that CannDelta’s clients get some of the best assistance possible, says McCann.
“There are a few different aspects that can make a great consultant,” he says. “These typically boil down to education/certifications, industry experience, and their track record of success.
“There is no particular degree required to call yourself a ‘certified consultant’; in fact, there is no such thing as certifiedin the consulting world. When evaluating if a consultant is right for you, it’s important that they bring a balance of understanding of the regulations in which they work within and an open-mindedness to your business model. A consultant (or consulting firm) should be able to do more than just state the rules or regulations, they should also be able to guide you through launching a successful business. A consultant should be personable and honest; there’s a lot of trust required and with some of the very large leaps of faith that must be made in the industry, trust is paramount. A great consultant is one that is able to stay on top of the changing industry so that they can provide their clients with the best service possible in a shifting regulatory landscape.”
Although the regulatory landscape can be difficult, Boodram says she does see improvements, even if slow.
“Since legalization, and more recently with COVID-19, Health Canada has made huge leaps to reduce contact and potential exposure by solving important logistical challenges pertaining to licensing, such as conducting virtual inspections, allowing digital media for the submission of large files, and to even allow temporary security clearance to ensure operations continue to run smoothly. From a business perspective, the cannabis industry is not showing any signs of slowing down despite the increased restrictions to how we live and work, and COVID has dragged Health Canada (kicking and screaming) into the digital age.”
UpRyze Cannabis is a micro cultivator and micro processor located just outside Edmonton, Alberta, licensed in October 2020.
Housed inside a 10,000sq ft facility in Acheson, UpRyze has spent the last several months growing out crops, dialing in their flowering rooms, and building partnerships to get their products to market.
These partnerships are important, but are only for the short term, explains Ron Gauthier, the company’s founder and CEO. He and his team are also in the process of getting their sales licence to allow them to sell dried flower and other products more directly, something they hope to have in hand later this year.
Gauthier says he and his partners began looking at the micro licence category in mid-2019 and found a property just down the street from another licenced cannabis producer. They began building in early February of 2020, and applied for their licence in September 2020.
Because the building they selected is a large warehouse space, Gauthier says their plans are to potentially expand over time with additional micro locations in the same building or close to their current location. The process of scaling out will take some time, he explained.
“We first looked at becoming a standard LP, but that project facility size, financial obligation, and duration for construction would be too strenuous. The micro cultivation facility size was a comfortable zone for us to construct, and we knew we could build it out in a timely fashion. Also, another upside to micros is since we can expand with each new facility, growing with the demand, it brings an opportunity to stay strain current in the market, over time by being able to bring in more genetics with each new facility, which is very appealing.”
“The beauty about micros compared to (larger) LPs is the LPs basically have to sell into their demand,” he continues. “We are reverse-engineering that approach, where we’re going to build micros when our demand calls for it. So we’ll see how this goes over the next six months based on the feedback we get and opportunities available before we make those expansion decisions.”
With one facility licenced, Gauthier says he and his team have learned a lot and hopes anyone else looking into becoming a cannabis producer is aware of all the challenges that come with it. Although UpRyze has had to partner with another Licensed producer to get their products in the market, the next hurdle to overcome is to be able to have direct supply chain access, meaning obtaining the sales licence for the sale of dried cannabis, then expanding further licenses to include extracts and topicals.
“When you get your licence, and feel you’re at the finish line, you’re not. You’re maybe halfway. You have so much more in front of you at that stage, and then you’re dealing with a lot of regulatory reporting as a licence holder.”
Ron Gauthier, Upryze cannabis
“When you get your licence, and feel you’re at the finish line, you’re not. You’re maybe halfway. You have so much more in front of you at that stage, and then you’re dealing with a lot of regulatory reporting as a licence holder. So there are definitely some challenges, and a lot of hidden surprises along the way. But it’s very rewarding once you overcome each one, to that eventual finish line.”
In addition to their micro cultivation and processing licences, Upryze also has its own medical sales licence and has plans to sell directly to those authorized to use the medical program.
One advantage Gauthier says UpRyze had was able to access Health Canada’s Cannabis Navigator program. The program is available to any applicant who identifies as Indigenous and Gauthier says being able to access the Navigator gave them a more direct line of communication, especially when it came to dealing with Requests for More Information (RMIs), specifically the duration of construction, and licensing.
“Health Canada is bombarded with thousands of requests, so getting a response back on answering RMIs (Request for More Information) can take a lot longer than expected.”
UpRyze currently has a Punch Breath for sale in Alberta, and expects to have several others valuable later this year, including Apple Fritter, Crumbled Lime, Ice Cream Cake, Runtz, Sunset Sherbet, etc.
Although he sees a lot of opportunity in the micro category, Gauthier says anyone looking to enter into the space will need to temper their expectations. He figures it will take two to three years from the start date of construction before they are seeing a profit, while still incurring plenty of expenses.
“Anybody who wants to get into this, if you give yourself a budget, you better double it or even triple it before you actually see any real revenue.”
“And getting licensed isn’t the end, it’s the beginning. Initially we thought you build the facility, get your licence, and you’re good to go. It’s a very long game, and you better have the money if you’re going to do this. If you don’t, you’re not going to make it.”
“Our main focus now is getting our sales licence so we can operate more directly with the provincial entities.”
Larry Cantor runs Black Kettle Farms, an indoor micro cultivator in Langley, BC, with his father, his master grower Mike Holub, and his best friend since grade school, Tim Carter.
Licensed in December 2020, Black Kettle has already sold out of their first batch of flower, Rainbow Driver, in Alberta. They also have their cannabis on shelves in British Columbia, and will be in Manitoba and Ontario soon through BC processor Joint Ventures Craft Cannabis.
Their next strain will be a Triangle Kush, just one of hundreds of genetics their master grower brought in with him that they hope to release to the market in the coming years.
Path to Market
The path to get to market has been a long one, Cantor emphasizes, taking considerable startup investment of more than one million dollars, plus months of building their facility, waiting on local and federal governments to issue licensing, growing out their first crops, and then several more months of work before getting their product ready to be accepted into provincial markets.
And although they are now selling products into the market and hope to be drawing a salary for him and his crew, he says he expects it will be several years before the business has fully recouped their startup costs.
“Consumers may ask why [an eighth] is $45 plus tax, but they might not understand the grower is getting a fraction of that,” says Cantor.
He says he hopes part of that streamlining will be BC’s expected farmgate and direct sales program for 2022. Farmgate will allow cannabis companies with the appropriate licensing to operate a retail store on-site, while direct sales will potentially allow some producers to ship small batches of products directly to retailers, rather than going through the BC LDB’s distribution warehouse.
In addition to the normal buildout time for his federal licence, plus about five months from submitting their licence to receiving it, Cantor says he had to also wait six to seven months for a licence from his local municipality before he could even build. Such delays are relatively common in BC.
Cannabis Community Support
Cantor, a builder by trade who says he has “dabbled” in cannabis growing over the years, credits getting through these long waits and navigating the licensing process to the help they received from others in the BC cannabis community.
Brian Schindel, a local consultant, helped them understand Health Canada’s process, while he says local micro cultivator Logan Dunn and Dunn Cannabis helped answer numerous questions about their facility, as well as an understanding of navigating the provincial market.
“I’d like to acknowledge how helpful Logan Dunn has been,” says Cantor, who says he called Dunn late last year after reading about him online. “He came out to our facility, pointed out what we could fix and the challenges to come. He’s just been a really solid guy who didn’t even know me but will answer my calls and help me with anything.”
Getting this kind of assistance, he says, has been crucial.
“There’s a lot you need to know. I don’t care if you’ve been growing your whole life, if you’re a lawyer, any of it, this is all uncharted. You essentially need to tell [Health Canada] how you do things, but you need to do it in a framework that they deem as acceptable. With your SOPs and GPPs, everything has to be acceptable with Health Canada. So it’s nice to have somebody who knows what they’re looking for.”
“I think if micros are going to make it, we really all need to work together as much as we can.”
Larry Cantor, Black Ketle Farms
Self-funding their own facility since banks in Canada are still reluctant, Cantor says he and his father renovated an existing barn on farmland near central Langley, with room to expand into a processing centre and potentially a larger growing facility.
He’s in no rush to expand though and says he wants to ensure Black Kettle Farms can maintain a focus on a high-quality craft cannabis product. Currently they have four 450ft2 flowering rooms, plus a veg room and small nursery, keeping all their genetics in-house.
“I do intend to be a much larger farm, but I want to stay with the small room, craft growing at all times,” Cantor says, “as opposed to a warehouse and a large, automated system. But I do want to expand on what we’re doing now.”
One more immediate part of that expansion, he says, will also be a space to process their own cannabis in-house, something they currently rely on an outside processor for.
Cantor says he’s happy to work with outside processors, especially for markets outside of BC, but his intention long-term is to get his own processing and sales licence so that he can take part in farmgate sales in BC, once allowed.
“Right now as a micro I’m going to maximize this square foot per dollar without having to spend that extra money and be under the microscope of a standard, but when I want to build this out, that’s when I might look at that and just do a licence amendment.”
One aspect of this he says he was unprepared for was what it takes to register their products beforehand, and how to deal with provinces, which others in the BC community have helped with.
“We got our licence, we got our first crop down, and even at that point there were things I didn’t know yet,” says Cantor. “Like knowing you need to register to get a product SKU so you can get your product to market, fresh. There’s so much in your way just do that. That’s something people should know upfront.” “Getting to sales is another journey,” he explains. “Getting licensed and growing is one thing, but then you’ve got to get your SKUs, your testing, your barcodes registered, it seems endless. So that’s where it’s been important to build these relationships with Brian, with Logan, with Ben, as well as Jeff Seabrook. I think if micros are going to make it, we really all need to work together as much as we can.”
Founded 35 years ago as a soil testing and agronomy research laboratory for all kinds of agricultural applications, A&L Canada Laboratories is one of the oldest cannabis analytical testing labs in Canada.
In addition to their testing with various agricultural industries, A&L also provides services across multiple sectors including Food, Environmental and Life Sciences.
For the cannabis industry specifically, A&L provides full analytical services for plant tissue, water, media and finished products. A&L’s services also include disease diagnostics, genetic analysis, production recommendations, and a Plant Monitoring Program.
When it comes to choosing an analytical testing partner, Nevin McDougall, the President and Chief Commercial Officer for A&L, says one often overlooked issue is not just testing of finished product, but testing of soil and water before even deciding on a location.
But what really makes A&L unique is our perspective around the production side of cannabis, all the way from our expertise in greenhouse testing and agronomy and outdoor field crop production agronomy.
Nevin McDougall, COO
Using a broad range of analytical services such as soil, media, water, nutrient and plant tissue testing; A&L can help a cannabis producer, be they indoor, outdoor, or greenhouse, to optimize product quality, resulting in a better customer experience and brand loyalty for the licensed producer.
As the interest in outdoor cannabis crops grows, says McDougall, many growers don’t consider such issues, sometimes jumping at the first land they can find and afford. Without considering what was grown or sprayed on that land prior, or the soil type and quality, growers can create numerous headaches for themselves down the road, from crops failing a pesticide or heavy metal analysis, to outright crop failure from poor soil quality and drainage.
“We provide Health Canada licenced, batch-released testing and a lot of the other standard testing protocols,” explains McDougall. “But what really makes A&L unique is our perspective around the production side of cannabis, all the way from our expertise in greenhouse testing and agronomy and outdoor field crop production agronomy, as well.”
“For outdoor production, for example, we’ve got decades of experience in soil analysis and accompanying with that is testing for pesticide residue, heavy metal analysis in soils, providing basic fertility recommendations based on past experiences and our in house Research and Development, and that goes right through to in-season production with tissue analysis. Plus final product testing.”
A&L provides hands-on assistance and decades of experience that can help any scale of cannabis grower, from micros to large-scale LPs, and everything in between. Outdoor producers or anyone growing directly in the soil need to look at several factors, such as soil drainage, past crop use, the level of the land, and the structure and type of soil.
“A basic soil test is step number one,” says McDougall. “What’s the basic fertility level of that field, organic matter, soil texture, all the most critical aspects around understanding nutrient analysis and what the fertility program will require.
He says he’s seen more than one outdoor production site lose some or even all of their crop simply because the operator didn’t take an issue like drainage into consideration beforehand.
“Unlike other providers who provide their service from a purely analytical perspective, A&L Canada Laboratories provides a holistic production perspective,” he says. “What this means is that we provide the services that encompass the entire production cycle of the crop, not simply final batch release testing. We believe this type of service will be critical for our clients to develop high-quality products resulting in a positive consumer experience. Our highly trained staff from PhD scientists to Certified Crop advisors are here to assist you.”
When choosing an analytical partner, cannabis producers would be wise to look for more than positive THC results.
“Ask lots of questions, ask about turnaround times, service levels, additional services they can provide, any value-added insights,” he continues. “There are a lot of areas where companies can provide insights for anyone getting into the industry, do they provide value add services, education, that can be important for people who are just learning.”
Typically, A&L provides a 3-5 day turnaround for most tests, along with what McDougall calls their “high touch” customer service, with technical representatives located at their main lab facility and across the country who are trained to provide support to our clients to ensure they are producing the highest quality crop possible. In addition, their online submission and data portals make it easy for you to submit and receive your COA.
“We’ve been in this business for 35 years,” says McDougall. “For anyone in the industry that wants a partner that has a high degree of credibility and has high-level integrity in what they are providing for their clients, we are an excellent choice.”
BC Cannabis Inc. is an Indigenous owned micro cultivator based in Sooke, BC.
Led by owner Albert Eppinga, the first of three micro cultivation facilities in Sooke under the BC Cannabis brand was licensed on April 9. Eppinga says he expects the next two licences, all located in the same building, to be licensed later this year.
He also has plans for a nursery and processing facility on First Nations land near Chilliwack, BC, that he hopes to be licensed later this year or in early 2022.
Inside BC Cannabis Inc in Sooke, BC
The first micro cultivation facility in Sooke is serving as a template to secure future funding, and allowing him to build the company up slowly, rather than needing a large investment upfront, he explains. Ultimately, once all five facilities are licensed, his goal is to create a closed-loop system from nursery through to processing and packaging, all benefitting First Nations communities.
“We want to provide jobs in our communities, jobs that can help First Nations in BC find a foothold in this industry,” Eppinga says, who will serve as the RPIC and master grower for all three micro facilities. “I just feel very proud to be an Indigenous person in this day and age. When I was younger it was very different, you know? We’re really excited to be a First Nations company. I feel very proud. It took so many years and sacrifice and money.”
Ideally, cannabis companies like his can provide not only jobs but also a template for other Indigenous communities across Canada.
“We want to fix those potholes in the soccer fields and the mould in the longhouses. We’re not here just to make money, we’re here to help our people as well. We want to help pave the roads. And that’s what really gets you success in life is when you give back to others, especially your own people.”
“There are very few opportunities where a small facility can be placed on First Nation land and actually generate real income. And I think a micro facility is one of those opportunities,” he continues.
Although some Indigenous communities in BC, and across Canada, have taken the path of pushing back against the federal and provincial regulations around cannabis production and retail, Eppinga says his goal is to help people see that they can work with these levels of government to find a viable place in the legal, regulated market.
They have no money!” he says, as an explanation for why some communities are allowing unlicensed retailers or growers to operate. “They have their longhouses with mould, the soccer fields have holes in them, the busses to take the kids to school have no gas in them.”
“So some are doing it out of desperation, some do it just to rebel against the government, and some want to do it by working with the law and those seem to be the larger and more sophisticated bands… they have more businesses, more land, more economic opportunities.”
Because of this, Eppinga says he’s heartened to see movement from the BC government recently to help businesses like his and many others. In addition to grant money that has been allocated to at least one First Nations community in Williams Lake, he says the government has also been helping First Nations retailers to get licensed and is laying the groundwork to help producers like himself position themselves to take part in a future “farmgate” retail model that would allow sales on the same site as the production facility.
This is where his plans for a processing facility near Chilliwack come in, he explains. In the future, he’d like to be able to grow his starting material in his nursery in Chilliwack, grow out his flower in his micro facilities in Sooke, then process and package and sell on reserve in Chilliwack.
In the meantime, he’ll be partnering with Sitka Weed Works, a cannabis cultivator and processor in BC, to package and sell their products into the retail system, while he waits for BC Cannabis Inc. to get all their appropriate licensing in place.
“We want to hire First Nations people where we can, employ, educate, and empower them in the cannabis sector and then change what people in these communities think of cannabis, to show them we can do it safely and fully secure and allow the FN people to capitalize on it as well, and can put gas in their busses to take their kids to school.”
The process is not easy or cheap, he adds. Although BC Cannabis Inc enjoyed some benefits of First Nations identity by working with Health Canada’s Indigenous Navigator service, he says the process still took a lot of time and money. Even finding a suitable location in BC that would allow cannabis cultivation was a chore. Although he had initially hoped to locate his micro facilities on First Nations land, the location he settled on in Sooke was the only one that ended up being receptive to his proposal.
“It takes a lot of money, it takes a lot of energy and time and regulations, security clearances, all of that,” says Eppinga. “And a lot of First Nations people, they don’t really have good security clearances, the guys who want to do it.”
“Many of us come from the black, or grey, or legacy market or whatever you want to call it. It’s changed so much over time. But a lot of my colleagues and friends, we’ve been growing for decades so we know what we are doing. We have over a hundred years of experience on our team. But getting the money, and being able to pass a security clearance, or having the confidence to navigate the regulations, it’s hard for many.”
“We want to fix those potholes in the soccer fields and the mould in the longhouses. We’re not here just to make money, we’re here to help our people as well. We want to help pave the roads. And that’s what really gets you success in life is when you give back to others, especially your own people.”
“We want to hire First Nations people where we can, employ, educate, and empower them in the cannabis sector and then change what people in these communities think of cannabis, to show them we can do it safely and fully secure and allow the FN people to capitalize on it as well, and can put gas in their busses to take their kids to school.”
Tim Harvey wants to change how consumers choose and buy cannabis and give cannabis growers and breeders a better understanding of what they are actually growing.
The founder and CEO of Lighthouse Genomics, Harvey has been working with a handful of researchers since 2016, taking samples of cannabis plants from partners in Canada and around the world, in order to build a genetic database of cultivars.
Using this database to help growers and breeders better understand and identify the genetics of the plants they are growing, Harvey says the ultimate plan is to build a certification system that is geared towards consumers to assist them in knowing what they are smoking or vaping and make more informed choices.
This certification system would draw from their database of thousands of cannabis varieties, each measured by 40,000 genetic data points. Optional reports will allow cannabis growers to check for consensus around the conventional “strain name”, which specific family the cultivar belongs to and how close to other similar varieties it is.
As an example, Lighthouse just spent the last six months testing several varieties of cannabis in the Canadian market, from plant samples from growers to products on shelves, and comparing their “genetic fingerprint” with each other to map similarities and differences.
Two of those strains they identified for this research, Pink Kush and Blue Dream, gave them two different examples of strain name accuracy and genetic variation within strain names. While samples of Pink Kush from all parts of Canada showed an extremely narrow range of genetic differences between them, Blue Dream showed not only a wider diversity of genetic traits but also had more outliers.
The reason for this, explains Harvey, is likely in the origin of those two strains and how strain names have historically operated in the illicit market. While Pink Kush is alleged to have begun as a single superior cutting in BC that was passed from grower to grower, Blue Dream is a strain that originated and became popular in California.
This means Blue Dream was likely to have found its way into Canada in the form of different seeds, which provides exponentially greater genetic variation than a population of clones. In addition, because these may have been harder to get and even harder to authenticate, the few extreme outliers—plants that may have been labelled Blue Dream but were possibly an entirely different variety—could have been a mistake when labelling a plant, or renamed of a desire to hop on a fad name.
“The results are highly informative,” explains Harvey. “In the case of Pink Kush, there is great uniformity of genetics – eight of the nine samples tested from across the nation were in fact clones of one another. But this was not so with Blue Dream. Perhaps because this variety originated in California, there is a cluster that appears to be siblings, and yet some outliers which may be Blue Dream in name only.”
“It’s the same underlying technology that 23andMe uses to provide a genomic profile for humans, and the same platform a lot of agricultural crops use. We’re doing the same thing for cannabis.
Rather than contradicting many legacy strain names, he says the research actually supports the common understanding of the origin of these two varieties. While their Pink Kush examples were all very similar, even the Blue Dream still showed a similar ancestry in many cases, if not as tightly related.
“It’s encouraging to see that the industry has remained true to that tradition when it comes to Pink Kush,” he says. ”And there is a lack of consensus when it comes to Blue Dream, and if there is an authentic cut, but certainly there does seem to be consensus towards a zone.”
“It’s encouraging to see that the industry has remained true to tradition in the case of Pink Kush being associated with a very specific genetic identity. Even with Blue Dream, we also see consensus, with the Blue Dream name assigned to cuts that are clustered in what appears to be a ‘zone of authenticity’ within the cannabis population.”
Looking at these traditional varieties in terms of families is a useful analogy, says Anders Goncalves da Silva, the Chief Bioinformatics Officer at Lighthouse. He likens their genetic mapping to that of a popular DNA testing company for people.
“Essentially what we’re doing is similar to what 23andMe does,” says da Silva. “It’s the same underlying technology that 23andMe uses to provide a genomic profile for humans, and the same platform a lot of agricultural crops use. We’re doing the same thing for cannabis.
“So we used the same technological platform to develop an assay specifically for cannabis. We get samples from different cannabis products, extract the DNA, isolate the DNA from the tissue and then it goes through our platform for genotyping.”
Philippe Henry is a biodiversity researcher and adjunct professor at the University of Northern British Columbia who through his own company, Egret Bioscience lab in Kelowna, teamed up with Lighthouse on their DNA analysis of Pink Kush and Blue Dream.
“This is the way other major crops are tested and sold, and now cannabis is going in this same direction,” says Henry.
“Cannabis is catching up to all these other crops. It was the last of the billion-dollar commercial crops to have its genome sequenced, it’s got a lot of runway ahead of it in terms of the scientific standards compared to where these other crops are at.”
This helps consumers, he says, especially medical users, because they can more accurately identify the specific variety they are looking for with a specific, replicable effect. For breeders and growers, it can both help them know with certainty what they are growing and help them better identify new or unique varieties that can help them distinguish themselves on the market.
Another advantage, especially for new breeders just entering the market—often through a nursery or micro cultivation licence—is to hold on to and protect their own unique genetics they bring in with them through a new licence.
“The small-time breeder who wants to outsource some of the cultivation to other groups and still have the ability to know they can audit and take samples from a grow room or the shelf and verify that another company they worked with aren’t selling particular genetics under a different brand,” says Henry. “Now we’re really getting to a place where people can do this, and it’s really affordable with this platform.”
Harvey agrees.
“Breeders today have so many more tools,” Harvey says. “Back in the day, it was their nose and experience, and maybe a few metrics like THC potency. Today it’s gone a step farther because of the tools that companies like Lighthouse and Egret are presenting to the breeders.”
“This will also level the playing field, providing smaller, more craft-scale businesses with a chance to really showcase their unique, valuable assets and draw attention to this. One huge thing we’re seeing since legalization is either the nurseries or the breeders that want to transition now into an LP, or be the genetic provider for the LP, now that they can migrate new genetics in.”
“This is the way other major crops are tested and sold, and now cannabis is going in this same direction.”
“With the Cannabis Authenticity and Purity Standard, it’s about being able to verify for consumers that not only is the product they are buying chemically stable between batches, but the genetics are the same batch after batch,” continues Harvey. “Cannabis is catching up to all these other crops. It was the last of the billion-dollar commercial crops to have its genome sequenced, it’s got a lot of runway ahead of it in terms of the scientific standards compared to where these other crops are at.”
“I would like to see genetic testing implemented as an industry standard. I’d like there to be transparency over the identity of the products on the shelf. Because ultimately, it’s all about giving the consumer a consistent experience. All parts of the supply chain deserve transparency and authenticity, but above all, these tools provide a powerful opportunity for producers to build trust with the cannabis consumer, just by doing the right thing.”
You can watch our recent presentation with Tim and Philippe here on YouTube
Left to right: Timothy Harvey, Lighthouse Genomics, McKinley Hlady, CanTec Global Dr. Steven Newmaster, NHP Research Alliance, Dr. Philippe Henry, Egret Bioscience.
Magi Cannabis is a small, family-run micro-cultivator on Salt Spring Island, in British Columbia. Josh Beckett and his partner Nadine are long-time islanders, with deep roots in the community.
Beckett is a second-generation cannabis grower who grew up with a love of the plants. Since 2009 Beckett worked with medical patients and developed a deeper understanding and appreciation of cannabis’s use in pain management and palliative care.
The process of transitioning from supporting medical patients to creating a business within the recreation framework has been a challenge at times, explains Beckett.
Banking is one obstacle he says he ran into early on. Initially, his local credit union reached out to him to see if he needed a business account only to call him back a few months later to say they were told by company leadership not to work with a cannabis business.
The regional application was just as difficult as the federal application. And more expensive because of all the professionals that were needed.
Josh Beckett, Magi Cannabis
Another challenge was just getting through the regional licensing and approvals. The Capital Regional District (CRD), the administrative body that manages all the southern Gulf Islands including Salt Spring, took six months just to reword their cannabis covenant, he says. There was also a requirement for registered professionals such as engineers and architects to be connected to his application, and limitations on where he could build.
“The regional application was just as difficult as the federal application. And more expensive because of all the professionals that were needed.”
“If you have a lot of capital, great. But if you don’t have a lot of capital, you really need to be careful with how you spend the money. There are a lot of experts out there that will use up your project financing pretty quickly.”
While he has faced a lot of hurdles, and continues to do so, Beckett is committed to making the business a success.
“My business plan is fairly simple: pay good living wages to the gardeners and trimmers, and produce an amazing product.”
Beckett works seven days a week, operating as the head of security, master grower, and license holder, with help from family and friends. He also did the entire application himself, which took hundreds of hours, with help from his sister Nova Kodaly.
“I’m overburdened and overworked. Honestly, I’ve gone through some periods of just wondering why I bothered doing this. It’s been challenging. It’s hard on the property, and it’s hard on me. It’s not like the old days.”
“This is a true craft, family, ma & pa legacy grow, and I’m a second-generation grower on Salt Spring Island. We love what we do and despite all the challenges, we want to make it work.”
Josh Beckett, Magi Cannabis
Another difference from the old days, continues Beckett, is that he needs to grow just one or two strains, not a handful. While he used to do lots of varieties for patients as a designated grower, but now realizes he needs to focus on just one or two to ensure he has large enough batches for market.
“I’m used to growing lots of different varieties to support different patient’s needs,” he says. “But what I’m realizing is with the compliance costs, I have to really rethink that.”
The custom-built shop that houses Magi Cannabis is only 2,000ft2, just under the allowable canopy for a micro cultivator. His actual canopy, he says, is around 1,300ft2 – a little over half of the allowed 2152ft2 (200m2). This was largely due to the logistics of his property, including suitable construction space and power needs.
Although he wouldn’t mind having a little bit more space, he says the small size makes it more manageable and helps him focus on high-quality products.
“We’re the craft of craft,” says Beckett.
Despite this small size, he says it cost upwards of $600,000 to build out and equip the facility with lights, HVAC and more – a price he says would be close to double for someone building something slightly larger and with the current increases in building and materials costs. He’s had to take out personal loans and investments from friends and family since he couldn’t secure a line of credit for his business.
These costs and challenges, he says, might work for growers in other parts of the country with more capital and lower overhead, but for legacy growers in the Gulf Islands, he thinks it might be difficult to convince people to transition to the legal market.
“The regional requirements are difficult enough that I don’t think we are going to see a ton of people transitioning,” says Beckett. “Legal cannabis cultivation is less profitable than the black market, so I just don’t see a lot of people doing it, not here.”
Beckett is hoping all the hard work is going to start to pay off soon, and make the workload and debt load worthwhile. Magi Cannabis has just entered into a supply agreement with Bud Coast (Joint Venture Craft Cannabis) to get their first crop of Hippie Headbanger and Salt Spring Sugar Star on the market, and into the hands of discerning consumers.
“This is a true craft, family, ma & pa legacy grow, and I’m a second-generation grower on Salt Spring Island. We love what we do and despite all the challenges, we want to make it work.”
Covert Valley is a husband and wife team who began making the transition from an ACMPR personal production licence to a micro cultivation licence in 2018.
With their facility located in Langley, BC, Kim and Mark Qvist’s small, indoor facility holds about 1,800ft2 of cultivation space. Covert Valley has produced several crops since receiving its licence in May of 2020, initially selling through a third-party partner. They are excited to now have two different varieties, a GSP and a Sour Chem, available under their brand name coming to BC stores in April.
The Qvist’s also have a nursery application in process at the moment, for a location in Nanoose Bay, and in the meantime have been using their small micro cultivation space to produce starting material for other commercial growers.
Kim Qvist, who, among many other roles, serves as the company’s RPIC, says they began using their current micro space to grow clones for other cultivators as a way to bring in revenue as they navigate the sometimes fickle provincial market for dried flower. Plus, she says this gives them a head start on establishing sales channels for when they get their nursery licence.
Covert Valley Reserve
“It’s definitely decreased our volume for flower, but it’s a trade-off” explains Kim. “What we’re doing is, while we’re building for our nursery, we’re using our micro licence to really prelaunch sales and get our name out there. Then once we licence the nursery we can pivot to that quickly.”
“There’s a lot more labour and paperwork to do clones than flower,” she says. “But from the production side, it’s something that we knew we had to do to bring in revenue. Especially with where the market is right now for more unique strains, processors wanting COAs, the 20% THC issue, all of that. To grow a whole crop and not know what you’re going to get can be a little nerve-racking. So selling genetics can help balance that out.”
“We’re focussed on bringing in some very unique, high-end flower,” says Mark. “That’s our main focus. Small batch, hand watered. Nothing is automated, it’s a very truly hands-on produced product. We’re excited to have products in BC because that’s home base for us.”
Getting to the stage of licensing wasn’t easy, explains Mark, but what they have learned with their micro licence has already helped them take better approaches with their nursery licence. For others entering the market, they both say that keeping your burn rate low and preparing for the unexpected is key.
“Be cautious with your overhead, your facility cost, leases, things like that,” says Mark. “Be prepared for longer timelines for licensing than you might have anticipated.”
“I think they should be prepared for at least two years,” he continues. “There’s a lot of things that need to fall into place, from having the right genetics to having your rooms running to their maximum efficiency and that takes time, that sometimes takes several crops to adapt and adjust the rooms. Things don’t just work perfectly on your first crops. It takes several crops and constantly adjusting your parameters to get that quality of product that you need.
“That’s just one hurdle. Then you have the sales hurdle, the branding, and the marketing, that’s another issue. There are quite a few steps along the way from construction to your first sale. A lot of stages to be ready for.”
With all those hurdles and challenges, though, The Qvists are hopeful for the future of the market for small-batch, craft cannabis.
“One of the things we’ve been quite excited to see is if there is a market for craft,” says Kim. “Being small business owners, we really like to promote the small craft product, especially from BC. There’s definitely some struggles but we’re seeing more craft coming to the market and I think it’s a positive sign.”
iNaturally Organic Inc. isa wholly-owned subsidiary of Emprise Canada Inc, and a holder of multiple micro-processing licenses, operating in Alberta. The company manufactures cannabis soft gels, topicals, nano-emulsions, and cannabis oils. Their facilities are located in Olds and Calgary, Alberta.
The brainchild of Mukhdeep Mangat and Dr. Anil Jain, iNaturally is one of the first micro processing licenses given by Health Canada and one of the first to get the sales licenses. The Company is already selling cannabis products in more than 1,000 stores in BC, Alberta and Ontario.
iNaturally’s first micro processing license in the city of Olds was issued in July 2019, while its second facility in Calgary received its processing license in August 2020. Sales license for extracts, edibles, and topicals was received in June 2020.
Dr. Jain says the Company chose the micro category because, “we felt that it was the best starting point to grow their business, and it would allow us to determine where consumers’ demands were and respond to them effectively, rather than investing tens of millions of dollars into a large production facility”.
“We knew we needed a low-cost structure,” says Jain. “We didn’t want to build big and hope for the demand. We built small and planned to grow organically with demand. And what this does is make the company financially sustainable. You don’t have to chase money, you can let money chase you”.
“Micro has allowed us to maintain a low-cost structure,” he continues. “The strategy has proven out because had we gone for a standard license and a large facility, maybe 20,000 sq ft building, we might be facing a challenging time financially right now since much of the capital dried up in 2020.”
Mangat, iNaturally’s Director of Manufacturing, agrees.
“The micro license has played a big role and it is part of our key strategy,” he adds. “Companies are building these large facilities but there is not enough demand for their products. I think a lot of the demand expectation was set by investors or bankers who really didn’t understand how the industry would evolve. So the micro category seemed like the best avenue to enter this industry and then grow as needed. It’s really worked out for us and has allowed us to be nimble in execution.”
““We didn’t want to build big and hope for the demand. We built small and planned to grow organically with demand. And what this does is make the company financially sustainable. You don’t have to chase money, you can let money chase you”.
Dr. Anil Jain, iNaturally Organic
Part of being nimble for their company has been their ability to get their second facility licensed and working on new, innovative products they hope will be in the market later this year, a powdered nano-emulsion that will be mixed with coffee, a partnership with Paradise Mountain Organic Coffee.
“You may have had other infused coffee products before,” says Mangat, but what we’re doing with nano-emulsion is something very unique, and a much better infusion. We’re excited by it.”
Being small, explains Mangat, also allows us to focus on innovation without too much corporate bureaucracy.
“We have just five employees, plus Dr. Jain and I”, explains Mangat. “We all work very hard, but this is our passion and we’re excited about what we’re doing, and I think that helps us innovate quickly and effectively. We’re focused on products that consumers want, but also on how we can differentiate ourselves so we can compete with the bigger players.”
“That’s why we can compete with the big boys,” adds Jain. “Because we can innovate and manufacture just as well as them, with a micro processing license.”
Part of that innovation includes research they are doing right now that can help consumers, especially medical patients, formulate the exact cannabinoid and terpene ratio for their specific DNA. You can find more information on their website www.emprise.ca.
Although iNaturally Organic says they are not opposed to eventually expanding into a standard license if demand increases enough, Dr. Jain says they are in no rush.
“We are excited that we have built a sustainable business with cool products. We expect $50 million in sales with our current facilities and licenses”.
Origin Coast is a micro cultivator and processor in Sydney, Nova Scotia, recently licensed in February 2021.
Born and raised in Cape Breton the company’s Founder and CEO, Michael Fong, spent close to two decades in the video game industry while living in Hong Kong, before he says the opportunity to grow cannabis called him back home to Nova Scotia.
He wrote out a business plan, found a piece of land outside Sydney, and built a facility large enough to hold 20 different rooms, from flowering to mother and veg rooms, processing, drying, etc. He brought in two other Nova Scotians with a passion for and a background in cannabis and also hired on a QA. Between the four of them, they run the bulk of the operation on a day-to-day basis.
Although the company has its micro cultivation, micro processing and medical sales licences, Fong says the immediate focus is entirely on growing flower and selling to third-party processors. Long term he may undertake processing on his own and work towards a sales licence, but right now it’s about drawing on their extensive library of unique cultivators and growing great flower.
“Even though we have a processing licence, we’re in no hurry to use it,” explains Fong. “I’m a strong believer in fostering long-term, mutually-beneficial partnerships. If someone can do something better than I can at the same price or cheaper, then why not? This will allow us to concentrate on happy plants and the quality of the flower instead of being distracted by also trying to juggle processing, packaging and distribution, at least in the beginning.”
Once they have built their own brand and can control more of the supply chain, he says he would love to see Origin Coast as a Nova Scotia brand sold in Nova Scotia, and thinks the position on Cape Breton Island can be an advantage for an LP partnering with them who may want to enter the provincial market there.
Although the facility itself has a fairly large footprint at 8,000 sq ft, with only 200m2 of cannabis being grown, and their use of automation and centrally controlled environmental systems, Fong says he and his other three team members can manage the entire operation. This allows them to keep a low overhead, he says, which he argues will be needed as they manage the first six months or more with no immediate revenue.
Fong brings extensive business management experience to Origin Coast, while relying on his master growers to manage the plant itself. Helping build and manage the China/Asia division as the Managing Director and Vice President of the Asia Pacific region for Blizzard Entertainment, a large US video game company, gave him a wealth of experience he says helped him build out the strategy and plan for his new cannabis company.
“This is from my corporate training I suppose,” he says. “I strongly believe that if it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed. So we are very data-driven in our operations. We measure and track everything we possibly can. Not just to make sure we are where we need to be and dialed in, but also so we can trace back to why certain results may have turned out different than we were expecting and determine whether we want to replicate those results. Especially as we are constantly testing new growing techniques, mediums, and products, and also in our pheno hunting. Traceability is important in our bid to provide a consistent premium quality product.”
Once he and his team have dialed in the cultivation side of the operation and the business model has proven itself, he says they have plans for further expansion beyond a micro licence on their three-acre lot. For the most part, this expansion will include additional indoor cultivation but may also include capabilities in processing and packaging. Taking these small steps and a phased approach will help him focus on the fundamentals, he explains.
Although there are and continue to be challenges, from licensing to financing and banking to finding a place and demand for your product in the market, Fong is encouraging to others but also cautions discipline and patience.
“It can be a great opportunity for some people, but not necessarily for all. I think you have to have realistic expectations. To get into this industry, there are high barriers to entry, particularly from a financial perspective; from the fact that banks won’t give you financing, you’re not able to apply for many government programs, and even just opening a bank account for your business is a challenge.”
“But if you can get over those barriers and you’re able to hold the line, be patient and work through the processes you have to go through, and of course produce a good quality product, then I think it’s a great business to be in.”
“Set yourself up so you can withstand the many storms you are going to be faced with. And a lot of the time that means you have to work hard, be very prudent in spending, and be smart about how you work. Make sure you are setting yourself up for the long term.”
The family behind Okanna Craft is another success story of a legacy BC grower transitioning into the legal recreational market, but the process wasn’t easy, they say.
Now that they have their first harvest ready for sale soon, they’re eager to share their story of the long road it took to get to this point.
Growing inside a facility they bought several years ago operating under their ACMPR licence, Travis Tully, along with his mother Nanette Tully and stepfather began retrofitting the four unit building to hold up to four licenses, micro and nursery, in 2018.
Although already using the space for cannabis, the trio says they spent several hundred thousand dollars retrofitting the interior to bring it up to the regulations, often stretching themselves financially thin, with the hope they would soon get a licence and could begin seeing the rewards. The retrofits, they estimate, were around $750,000 for the licence.
Travis, the family’s grower, has spent years cultivating this craft in BC, having taken an interest in cannabis plant science in his teens and with an entrepreneurial spirit, he found his hands in the dirt and a connection to the plant. When Travis saw a way to grow legally on the horizon, his desire to share his craft cannabis became his goal. He approached his mother and stepfather for support and they didn’t hesitate to put the plan in motion and apply for their Micro-cultivation license as well as a nursery license for their Kelowna facility.
“We still don’t know what it will look like, but we have some creative ideas and will be working with the right team to support our farmgate vision. We see a lot of tourist traffic, especially in the summer.” Travis says. “And it will be a great opportunity to showcase BC Bud in its natural habitat.”
Travis Tully, Okanna craft
Although they initially planned for an additional micro cultivation and nursery licence, Travis’ mother Nanette, who manages Okanna’s sales and marketing, along with several other responsibilities, says they are currently reevaluating and diversifying potentially looking at a processing licence.
“We’re looking at getting our own processing and sales licence, absolutely,” says Nanette. “But we’re going to start slow because we’re farmers really. But we’re looking at starting processing with a pre-roll solution, as pre-rolls seem to be contracting out and we need to evaluate what is best for our flower, our bottom line and supporting the craft community.”
The family also intends to get their own processing and sales licence, says Travis, because they hope to be able to open their own retail farmgate store once BC allows it. Located right along Kelowna’s rail trail, and in close proximity to the Okanagan UBC campus, their property is perfectly suited to cater to consumers living in and visiting the Okanagan Valley.
“We still don’t know what it will look like, but we have some creative ideas and will be working with the right team to support our farmgate vision. We see a lot of tourist traffic, especially in the summer.” Travis says. “And it will be a great opportunity to showcase BC Bud in its natural habitat.”
New Cultivars
Although the process of licensing took longer than they anticipated, the extra time has given them a chance to observe the market and make important changes, says Nanette. For one, they have had to reprioritize which cultivars they first bring to market, she says.
“If we would have come into the market a year ago, the market wouldn’t have been ready for us,” explains Nanette. “And we wouldn’t have been ready for the market. What we’ve learned in the last year with all the pitfalls we’ve gone through has staged us for where we are now.”
Maureen, a staff member at Okanna Craft
Originally, they had hoped to bring a cultivar they have a lot of experience growing, Tora Bora, but because it has less than 20% THC they decided to wait until the market is more receptive to that kind of cannabis. Even the strain they decided on for their first entrance into the market, Blue Coma, she says is not as high in THC as others, but says the high terpene count more than makes up for this.
“We have decided to go with God’s Berry, a cross between Kish and Gods Bud, a great smoke with a strong berry fruit smell and taste, a great chunky frosty bud that will not disappoint. We are growing for the legacy and new consumer to enjoy true BC Bud again”.
Securing unique genetics that have yet to be seen on the legal market is a big part of what they hope can distinguish themselves in the market, says Travis. Okanna brought in around 100 different cultivars, and he expects to choose the best of the bunch, narrowing his picks to about thirty in the next year or so as they use their nursery space to pheno hunt the best varieties.
Working with another BC-based micro*, Joint Ventures in Salmon Arm, they expect to have Blue Coma on shelves in BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan in the coming months. They also hope to release pre rolls in partnership with another micro cultivator under their proprietary pre-roll brand tOKANNAgan.
*Note: Joint Ventures recently amended their licence from micro to standard.
Challenges for growers transitioning to the legal market
Working with A like-minded processor like Joint Ventures, says Nanette, has been a positive experience.
“What Joint Ventures does for us, for example, is great. Their sole purpose is to package and to distribute products for their cultivators. Their mission is to transition and this aligns with our values.”
These kinds of partnerships are important, she says, because a lot of the micros getting licenced might be good at growing cannabis, but they don’t necessarily know how to run a business or market and network their products and brand.
“This has been the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our whole life,” she says. “It’s been the scariest thing we’ve ever done in our whole life. Just in terms of financially, legally. We’re just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now.”
Nanett Tully, Okanna Craft
Working with the BC Craft Farmers Co-op, Nanette says she sees this as one of the biggest challenges for the success of many micros.
“I see (business acumen) as a big hurdle for the micro cultivators,” says Nanette. “Just as an example, there are farmers sitting on their product right now who can’t sell it. They call processors who don’t call them back. At the co-op, we’re addressing this. We’re educating people on this right now, every day.”
“This is often missed,” she continues. “They’re farmers, they’re not business people. You can have the best product and not know how to market it. Or you can have a mid-grade product and do great marketing and make more than the guy who doesn’t know how to market.”
She points to other successful micro brands like North 40 and Dunn Cannabis, who have built the right partnerships and been active and engaging online to help build brand awareness.
“This has been the hardest thing we’ve ever done in our whole life,” she says. “It’s been the scariest thing we’ve ever done in our whole life. Just in terms of financially, legally. We’re just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel right now. But have we stretched ourselves and put our entire savings into this, believing in this vision? Now is when we need to make money to make this work.”
